


Hawthorne House

by strawberrycupcake_huckleberrypie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Ben Solo, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort Sex, F/M, Graveyards and Hurricanes and Passion Oh My, Love Is Magic, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Natural Disasters, Omega Rey, One True Pairing, Scent Marking, The Enchanted Cottage (1945 film), True Love, True Mates, Tsunami of Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-08 11:44:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14693544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrycupcake_huckleberrypie/pseuds/strawberrycupcake_huckleberrypie
Summary: “Let me know if I can do anything for you,” Rey said as she stumbled backward from the door, aware again of the glasses she had forgotten she was holding, Mr. Ren once again obscured wholly from view behind the closing door.“Good girl,” his unmistakable voice came, approvingly before the door closed firmly.****Rey's never been holed up in a vacant bed & breakfast during a hurricane with an alpha like him before. Although, there may not evenbeanother alpha like him.





	1. Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> for my girls  
> @NewerConstellations, @raven_maiden, @delia-pavorum(literaryminded), and @kittenthecat.  
> May we, as a fandom and as a sisterhood, never lack for good a/b/o smut.
> 
> "More growling, please."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my girl @rileybabe makes these pretty moodboards and she spoils me with them.

 

 

_The moon rose, and the moon set;_

_And the stars rushed up and whirled and set;_

_And again they swarmed, after a shaft of sunlight;_

_And the dark blue dusk closed above him, like an ocean of regret._

 

\- Conrad Aiken, The Charnel Rose: A Symphony

 

 

****************

 

 

“Thank you so much for staying with us here at Hawthorne House, Mr. and Mrs. McIntosh.”

 

Rey heard Amilyn complete the check-out process for the guests from Room 302, their luggage beside them at the cherry podium in the front hall beside the heavy double lead-glass framed doors. “We certainly hope you’ll come back to stay again.”

 

She watched as the middle-aged couple from Kentucky or Alabama or Tennessee or somewhere else shook hands with Amilyn and gave the house one last longing look goodbye, one final glance at the beautifully appointed, antique-filled foyer and formal dining rooms teeming with departing bed & breakfast guests, promising to return to Savannah to stay again.

 

They were living the same routine Rey had witnessed dozens, perhaps hundreds of times during her 5-month tenure as housekeeper at Hawthorne House already.

 

People came, people stayed, people made a mess of their rooms upstairs, proving how much damage two humans could really be capable of when allowed, and then they left, devoting themselves to the idea of return.

 

So far, Rey hadn’t seen anyone return.

 

They came from all over to stay at Hawthorne House on Olivier Square in Savannah’s famed utopian, green-spaced, planned old quarters, drawn by the restored, graceful architecture, the quaint, pastel row houses, the cobblestone roads, the fountains, the horse-drawn carriages and the wealth of history the old town boasted, and though they left with souvenirs and photos and occasionally a scoop of sand from Tybee Beach an hour’s drive away on the Atlantic coast, they went back to New Jersey or Florida or Georgia the same way they came, in sedans and SUVs and pickup trucks, back home to people who they showed their vacation photos to.

 

It wasn’t that Rey was bitter.

 

She was actually very happy with her job, grateful for the income and thrilled it gave her time to complete her Master’s at Savannah College of Art and Design where she poured her every cent, every drop of sweat, every tear into Restoration Design, stripping, rebuilding, restoring and reviving old furniture and stained glass windows and sites around town.

 

The monotony, though, of a job dusting the same shelves, making the same beds, and rinsing the same plates endlessly as they were used by a never-ending parade of visitors rang hollow.

 

Chirrut, docent of the Flannery O’Connor’s house and museum on the opposite end of Olivier Square, made for an excellent companion though, a lively source of conversation and a great sport about her cat, BB, who wound her way through Chirrut’s legs daily as he sat and faced the sun above them while she worked on the back patio of the Hawthorne House property, refurbishing furniture for the house.

 

Chirrut was blind since youth but, that hadn’t stopped him from becoming the premier docent of several museums in Savannah or from routinely complimenting Rey’s work on her projects, running his hands over the furniture thoughtfully, giving feedback and praising her gratuitously as he felt the grooves, divots and curves of antiques Rey spent hours recuperating.

 

Rey scooped the scraped plates of Eggs Benedict left behind by guests off a linen-draped cafe table nearest her elbow and carried them gingerly in her hands to the kitchen before grabbing a broom to sweep up spilled cereal beneath the butcher block kitchen island as she headed back to the dining room, stifling a sigh and wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

 

Only 10 am and already stiflingly warm.

 

Rey perched a full plastic laundry basket of freshly-folded bed sheets and fluffy, white duvet covers against her hip and rounded the bottom landing of the grand staircase on her way to remake beds in vacant rooms when she overheard an exchange at the podium before the double wooden front doors.

 

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she heard Amilyn say as she caught the polished wooden bannister knob in her hand, pivoting towards the steps and starting upstairs. “We don’t normally check-in guests until regular check-in time at 4 pm. I’m so sorry, Mr. Ren.”

 

_Always with the early check-ins_ , Rey mused to herself, as she began her ascent, hiking the heavy basket on her hip further.

 

“And there’s no way you could make an exception, I assume?”

 

Rey’s breath caught on a pocket of blank space in her lungs at the voice behind her at the podium, her heart stuttering as her eyes shot widely open, blind to the oil painting in her direct line of sight, all her senses redirected instantly to the speaker at her back, the deep gravel of a voice speaking with Amilyn.

A blush of heat spread across her cheeks as she felt a single drop of sweat collect and run against the nape of her neck, past her gland which tingled unmistakably at the deep timbre of his voice and Rey shook her head lightly to right herself.

 

_That’s just what happens,_ she reminded herself as she kept climbing stairs.

 

“Oh…well, I…I'll tell you what. Let me see what I can do, alright? No promises but, let me at least get you some breakfast while we wait and see what’s clean. Okay?” Amilyn offered and Rey knew her boss’ voice well enough to hear the smile in her tone.

 

Rey climbed to the landing, her vision returning as she carefully focused on walking the stairs quickly and she peered down into the foyer below quickly as she rounded the corner.

 

The voice belonged to a set of dress pants and polished shoes.

A leather Belt.

A white button-down shirt.

A watch.

 

All man, even from the pecs down, hands in pockets, turning slowly back towards the door.  

 

Irrationality caused Rey a blip of panic, _don’t go,_ even as she kept climbing stairs, and she clicked her tongue at her own silliness.

 

***********

 

“Everybody gone?” Maz asked as she wiped down the final kitchen counters and dried her hands on the dishtowel in her hands.

 

“Yes,” Amilyn told her, pouring homemade sweet tea into a tall milk glass tumbler. “That’s the last of them. Until after the storm, anyhow,” she gave a tired sigh. “I’m heading out. Want to walk out with me?” she asked Maz, who nodded.

 

“Just let me get my bag,” Maz told her with a heavy exhale, “and I’ll come with you. Need to get all boarded up at my house still,” she said as she walked away muttering about youth and age and hurricanes and September.

 

“You sure you’re okay to do this?” Amilyn asked Rey, who sat on the floor, sanding a table leg from her most recently scavenged piece of heirloom furniture, a pile of newspapers beneath her as she worked. “You sure you’ll be okay? Even with a guest here?”

 

“Of course,” Rey assured her. “I’m not a baby you know, Amilyn,” she teased with a grin, “and anyhow, Chirrut and BB will be here. They’ll protect me.” She grinned cheekily.

 

“That does not feel reassuring.”

 

“Alright, well, we’ll protect _each other_ , how’s that?”

 

“Better,” Amilyn smiled at her. “You have my number. You call me anytime. You promise me?”

 

“I promise you,” Rey said. “And hey, Amilyn. That guest. Mr. Ren. You know him. Right?”

 

“I know his mother,” Amilyn said. “Or, well, at least I did once upon a time. Why? Does this make you feel too uncomfortable to stay here during the storm with him here?”

 

“No, it’s fine,” Rey said, faking more confidence than she felt at the thought of weathering a hurricane with a stranger in the mansion. “If you know the family and think it’s okay, I’m sure it’s okay. And besides, Chirrut will be here with me.”

 

Amilyn bit her lip and stood towering over Rey as she continued sanding and blowing wood dust from the chair leg she held, and her brow furrowed thoughtfully.

“Hmm. Alright. Well, I’ll make sure to send Poe over and check a couple times. Make sure everything is okay while we’re closed up.”

 

Rey cocked her head and gave a smile she hoped was reassuring. “It’s _fine,_ ” she stressed, wondering why she was intent on assuring her employer to leave her unattended for several days in a mostly-vacant house with a mysterious stranger, feeling her anticipation at odds with her better judgement.

 

“Even so,” Amilyn reiterated as she headed for the swinging kitchen door, “Poe will stop by. To make _me_ feel better, at least. I really don’t think you’ll have any trouble with Mr. Ren the next couple days or I’d never approve you being the one to stay here,” Amilyn said as she hurried around the kitchen. “I know he was hurt badly in an accident recently and is still recuperating. His mother told me he mostly needs quiet to recover. And I’ve known his mother, if not him personally since college. You shouldn’t have to do anything at all for him besides leave food in the fridge for him until we reopen after the hurricane moves away.”

 

Rey nodded happily and continued sanding, wondering why she wasn’t more nervous.

 

“You call me for anything at all. Or text me. You promise?”

 

“Promise.”

 

Amilyn smiled and gave Rey a decidedly insistent eyebrow-raise and with a small wave to Rey she swung out the door to the living areas.

 

Rey listened for the doors to close once, then again, then a third time and a fourth when Maz and Amilyn forgot keys and retrieved them, finally exited for good, locking the door behind them from inside to assure Rey would be safe from unexpected guests arriving.

 

She blew out a retained breath, grateful for the peaceful reprieve already falling gently around her as solitude enveloped the kitchen and she pushed her brow back with her wrist, readjusting her damp hair off her face as she returned her attention to the chair leg she held.

 

It would be so much easier to focus if she could cool off.

 

And, if she could focus.

_Why couldn't she focus, again?_

_Oh. That's right. The voice attached to the pants_. 

 

Rey shook it off. Work to be done. 

But, there was no reason to hurry home to a house to board up.

No husband to prepare a home beside, no family of origin to secure before a storm, no relatives to check on.

She had suite-mates at grad school and friends of course but, she was as good a choice as any to stay and keep watch over Hawthorne House as any employee during the storm and besides, no one would be looking for her besides Chirrut and BB and this way she could just stay here with them and outlast the hurricane together.

 

Maybe they wouldn’t even lose power.

 

Rey glanced at the clock, 1:03 pm and she sighed.

It was too quiet and the solitude weighed down on her like an increasingly-heavy shawl as the time ticked on.

 

Every pass of the sandpaper grated her nerves as her agitation escalated with the stillness of the air around her, the silent space around her pressing her with every second she sat laboring on the floor over her work, the grandfather clock keeping time in the foyer the only noise in her ears.

 

Rey huffed as she dropped the sandpaper, satisfied with her result and headed for the refrigerator to retrieve a glass of sweet tea for herself.

 

Pulling down two bevelled glasses from the open shelves, she dropped ice cubes and the sweet, brown tea in while studying the pale gray sky out the kitchen window over the sink. The hurricane was still making its way up the Atlantic seaboard from Florida today and would make landfall at some point, although it was still too soon to know precisely where.

There was no mistaking though, the storm was coming this way and all of Savannah worked to batten down the hatches to prepare, just in case Hurricane Mallory chose their fair city.

 

Rey blew her bangs off her forehead with a well-aimed puff of air and carried the two glasses up the stairs, only realizing on the second step she had _two_ glasses in her hands.

 

Not just one.

 

She was heading for the guest’s room, Mr. Ren’s room, unbidden and unconsciously.

 

Her feet stuttered and stilled as she looked down and considered the matching, perspiring glasses she held.

A match set.

 

_I am overthinking,_ she decided. _He’s a guest after all, and I’m an employee here._

 

She continued her ascent to the second floor, stepping lightly and assuming a pleasantly unassuming demeanor, professional and courteous, while also hitting notes of unavailablity and generosity as she approached Room 204.

 

_Nothing wrong with this,_ she confirmed as she walked towards the closed, paneled door briskly. _Just offering a beverage. People do it everyday. Not weird at all._

She spared only a passing thought as to why she was so concerned with her motives and realizing she had no free hands as she called out cheerfully instead.

 

“Hello,” she called. “Mr. Ren…is it?”

 

The whole house seemed to swallow up her voice, the thick carpeting of the hall muffling her chirping as it left her lips, the perspiration of the tumblers dripping down her hands to her wrists.

 

A moment before the door creaked open she heard the faintest of footsteps and then, the door pulled back the slightest from its frame.

 

No lights shined past the figure in the doorway, still hidden behind the door where it stood cracked open.

Rey peered hard, trying to make out the figure who has opened the door to her, eyes manually adjusting to the room with drawn curtains.

 

“I…I brought you some tea,” Rey explained. “Thought you might be…” she trailed off as one molten dark eye came into view, one sharply-carved cheek, one corner of a lush set of lips emerged from the shadows behind him, so tall she redirected her eyes upwards from his collarbone where they’d been trained, looking for him in the dark.

 

“…thirsty.”

 

She finished and gulped, taking a cleansing breath as she took in his wide shoulder, his single ear, peeking through dark waves that brushed his collar, the stubble lining his gritted jawline, the ghost of a shadow over his lips, her body recognizing instantly his delicious scent, stimulating her immediately.

Just half his body was visible and Rey was mesmerized.

 

Rey blinked into the dark, her eyes still adjusting and she took a half step forward instinctively as she reached a glass towards him.

 

Her whole frame ignited as his gaze brushed over her face, his nostrils flaring as he took a breath as well, his shoulders pulling backwards into the room behind him, straightening his posture and removing him the slightest from Rey.

 

“Thank you,” he said, his voice a rumble barely audible, his hand reaching out to Rey as he accepted the glass.

She stood transfixed as the stranger held her gaze and sipped the tea slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.  

 

“You’re welcome,” Rey said quietly as he watched her over the rim of his glass, still half-hidden in the darkness behind the door, his throat moving hypnotically as he swallowed at eye-level with Rey’s watchful stare.

 

_You’re welcome, alpha,_ her mind supplied silently, her spirit lifted that she had supplied something sweet for him, her omega chemistry innately proud to be found willing and acceptable.

 

“So good,” he intoned approvingly as he licked his lips while Rey watched, captivated, his Adam’s apple working and his fingers grazing hers as he handed her the glass in return.

 

Rey was speechless. He was a god. He was an alpha god and she was spellbound utterly.

He was altogether, completely riveting and she was planted on the spot, numb and electrified all at once and all he has done was drink some sweet tea, all she had seen was half his form and frame.

She shuddered to think what watching him do anything more might do to her.

What seeing his full self would do.

 

“Alright, well, bye then,” she said, standing still as a statue, making no movement to leave the doorway whatsoever.

 

“Alright then,” he repeated, also frozen, one eye narrowing in the slightest hint of amusement.

 

Rey blinked twice quickly, shaking her head gently to break her trance and she smiled intentionally.

“I’ll just be downstairs then. If you need anything Mr. Ren,” she remembered to say, still unmoving.

 

“Thank you. Ms…” he said, asking her name.

 

“It’s Rey,” she said, hearing the breathlessness in her own tone as she struggled to breathe around his potent alpha scent emanating from his room. “Just Rey.”

 

“Thank you, just Rey,” he said, his eyes flitting over her face and shoulders before turning his head completely from view behind the door, moving to shut her out.

 

“Let me know if I can do anything for you,” Rey said as she stumbled backward from the door, aware again of the glasses she had forgotten she was holding, Mr. Ren once again obscured wholly from view behind the closing door.

 

“Good girl,” his unmistakable voice came, approvingly before the door closed firmly.

 

A wave of desire pushed Rey towards the wall gently, a flash flood of hormones washing over her in a cascade of overwhelming desire at his words, her face flushing and all her glands pulsing in unison, her heart fluttering hard.

 

_Good girl, he said you’re his good girl,_ her brain supplied, _the big, strong, alpha found you pleasing, omega._

 

Rey gathered herself even as she gave the tiniest, helpless whimper and she took a deep breath through her mouth to clear her head, half-tumbling down the stairs towards the safety of the main floor of the house, depositing the glasses in the sink and leaning over it to rinse her mouth with fresh, unsweetened water.

 

She rolled her eyes at herself and straightened her hair, tightening her ponytail and throwing her shoulders back, glimpsing Chirrut out the back door petting BB as he arrived. She moved towards the door with a bright smile as she anticipated greeting her good friend and shushed her omega brain as she walked, deciding her next plan of action would be a nice, cool bath.

 

She needed to cool off.

That’s all.

She was overheating. She needed the late summer stickiness rinsed off like a morning dew restoring the parched land and that’s what her next order of business would be.

 

She just needed to cool off.

That’s what she would do next.

 

*********


	2. Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do yourself a favor: don't look for plot.
> 
> I don't know for sure but, this felt like some of the filthiest ish I have written yet.  
> And we are just getting started.  
> Here, hold my Diet Coke. 
> 
>    
> you know my girl @rileybabe made this aesthetic. She's magic.  
> *blows you sisters a kiss*

 

 

 

 

_One by one the stars stepped down,_

_Each to assume his destined place:_

_And there he saw the destined face._

 

_Her eyes were void, here eyes were deep:_

_She came like one who moved in sleep:_

_And when she looked across the night_

_Beneath, among, those points of light,_

_Into his heart she shot a pang,_

_As if a voice within him sang,_

_Sang and was silent._

 

\- Conrad Aiken, The Charnel Rose: A Symphony

 

*********

 

“This heat is just oppressive, isn’t it?”

 

Chirrut smiled from behind unseeing eyes at Rey as she sat opposite him on the iron patio set on the cobblestone-laid side porch at Hawthorne House, BB arching happily into his hand as he scratched beneath her chin.

 

 _If only you knew how oppressive heat can be_ _,_ Rey thought, pinching her thighs together as she felt a slip of moisture make its way into her panties, her knees pulled up tightly against her chest as she leaned her head back against a cushion and shut her eyes, focusing on peace.

 

 _Tranquility. Just let it happen._ Willing the ache away.

 _Peace. Don’t fight the heat._ Be calm. _Be at peace with your omega mind and body._

 _Serenity. Acceptance._ Relax.

She steadied her breathing and pushed the demanding memory of Mr. Ren in Room 204 towards the corner of her mind, anxious to feel more sedate.

 

“Mmm,” she murmured a lazy response and swept her hair from her face, tendrils escaping her ponytail in the thick humidity of the late Georgia summer, despite the breezeless air that surrounded them.

 

“The calm before the storm, I suppose,” Chirrut sighed resignedly before standing to stretch.

 

Rey dropped her chin and observed his easy movements as he made his way to the backdoor and she stood to assist him towards his guest room at the bed and breakfast which for the next several days served as emergency housing for them both as the hurricane approached.

 

“Come on,” she told him conspiratorially, offering him her elbow as she opened the screen door and then the glass-paned wooden painted door behind it.

“I saved you Room 102. King sized bed all ready and waiting just for you, my friend,” she told him good-naturedly, leading them both inside and leaving BB to licks her paws on the porch alone.

 

“You spoil me, Rey,” Chirrut smiled as Rey led him through the kitchen and living areas, down the hall beneath the stairs as he carried his overnight bag and folded his red-tipped cane into itself.

 

“I do nothing of the kind,” Rey assured him as she led him into the spacious guest room as he set his belongings on the luggage rack beside the desk. “Now Chirrut, you know there’s an en suite bathroom right here…to your left…” she said, moving toward the bathroom door, “and plenty of clean towels and whatnot in there. You know the drill. And a TV right here,” she reminded him as she walked him around the room. “Oh, and a back door right here,” she said, walking him nearer, “that leads out to the street past the patio. Thought you’d like that.”

 

Chirrut smiled and patted her arm with his free hand before dropping her elbow and feeling for the armchair beside him to sit. “You always take care of me, don’t you, my friend?” he said affectionately.

 

“Not at all,” Rey said, leaning over to kiss his temple. “Now, I’m going upstairs to bathe and hopefully cool down. I’m hot as blazes,” she told him, hoping her scent wasn’t a dead giveaway of her heat but, realizing it most likely was, as even now she felt her temperature rise and her core begin to pulsate with an aching neediness.

Being a beta, as well as her dear friend, there was no threat in Chirrut knowing of her heat but then again, being a beta, there was no hope of his being able to sate her need, either.

 

“And I am going to take a nap,” he told her contentedly.

 

“Enjoy,” she said as she moved towards the door.

 

“You as well,” he remarked as Rey closed the man’s bedroom door behind her and headed for the stairs.

 

A mid-afternoon bath was just what was called for, she was sure when she was on the main floor of the house but, her intentions faded like colorfully wet paintbrushes held beneath running water, her resolve draining away as the scent from the second floor assaulted her nostrils, her olfactory sense arguing as she passed Mr. Ren’s room there was a far superior way to feel cooler, better, cleaner, happier than any ordinary water could offer, his alpha fragrance wafting towards her as she crossed the second floor and headed for the third, where her own room awaited.

 

Hurrying to close her bedroom door, she stripped hurriedly, dropping clothes as she made her way to the bathroom, her womb demanding attention, already frustrating her as she turned the handles of the clawfoot tub to lukewarm and pinned her hair into a messy appropriation of a bun on her head, aware only one thing would cure, only one thing would fix this….this…situation.

 

Sliding into the tub, Rey leaned her head on the cool porcelain lip  and slipped her eyes closed, the faint tickle of rising water lulling her as it lapped at her overheated skin, breathing methodically as it met her hot lower lips, swollen and drawing her attention.

 

The only sound was the running water at her toes and her own breathing, the house beneath her cloud-scraping tub hushed.

 

 _A knot,_ she fantasized as her body floated in a sea of tub water, weightless and delighted.

Filling, sating, overpowering and empowering.

 _ His knot, _ she fixated mentally, eyes closed.

 

Her hands skimmed her pinched nipples, spiking desire in her wet cunt as she slipped one hand between her thighs to circle her clit, the other scraping lazily to tease her breast where it stood out of the rising bathwater.

 

She slipped a finger, then two into herself deeply, a moan escaping her lips as she pulsed gently around them and she pinched her nipples softly as a thought came slamming into her mind, the memory of his fingers holding the glass in front of her eyes.

His big, thick fingers.

 

Those were touching her now, as far as Rey was concerned.

In another moment, she realized her room lay directly above his and in another moment she pictured him, even the bits of him she’d glimpsed, not nearly enough, only one floor beneath her.

 

 _Let me take care of you,_ the alpha told her, his deep voice reverberating through her core as he spoke.

 

Rey’s finger’s delved deeper into herself, Mr. Ren’s face hovering above her closed eyes in the tub.

 

 _Does this feel good, sweet girl?_ he asked, forcing three huge, manly fingers inside her, making her gasp.

 

She moved her hand to the other breast and stroked her nipple as the water lapped at the tip with her.

 

 _Tell your alpha what you want, my omega. My perfect, sweet girl. I have what you need and I will give it to you so hard,_ he promised, his bottomless voice a well of sin and sex.

 

She groaned and circled her clit faster with her palm as her fingers worked to reach the elusive place inside, knowing as she did it would not be enough and unable to resist trying anyway.

She bit her lip and stretched to chase her crest, gasping lightly as she pictured Mr. Ren’s pitch black eyes, his full, pouting lips, his thickly sculpted shoulder, his heavenly, spicy essence wrapping around her in a vice of pleasure and she clenched hard around her fingers inside herself as she came shudderingly hard, water splashing over the edge of the tub as she hyperventilated.

 

Catching her breath, she stood as quickly as possible to stop the overflow of water over the side of the bathtub and moving to step out of the tub she grabbed hurriedly to wrap a towel around herself as she leaned simultaneously to pull the plug from the tub, fast as she could, barely conceiving of the fact her lightheadedness was at odds with her actions.

 

She had no other thoughts before she fell unconscious to the bathroom floor.

 

*************

 

_Warmth._

 

_Safety._

 

_Weightlessness._

 

_Comfort._

 

Rey sighed against the plush wall of muscled strength that carried her and her lips found the tantalizingly irresistible aroma filling her heart and mind, her eyes closed and a smile ghosting her face as she nuzzled the gland beneath his skin under her cheek. She moaned ardently as she breathed him in, whomever was carrying her…

 

_carrying her…._

 

_why was someone carrying her?_

 

Mr. Ren was here. He was carrying her, Rey realized as he placed her carefully on her bed and moved his body away from hers, disappointment and embarrassment flooding her at once.

 

“What happened?” her voice squeaked as she spoke, her efforts to shake herself out of her stupor proving difficult.

 

Mr. Ren towered over her and Rey gazed up at him with slightly hazy eyesight.

His hair was pushed back from his face, one errant wave falling over his forehead rebelliously. His shirt, still tucked into dress slack unbuttoned only once at his throat. His eyes were lighter in this room, situated in the gauzy afternoon sunlight filtering through sheer curtains as it was, and his hands hung in loose fists at his sides, opening and closing rhythmically as he stood staring down at Rey.

 

He smelled like heaven and hell on a stick and Rey’s temporarily-sated heat roared to life emphatically at his proximity.

 

“I heard you fall,” he said, his low voice like the one from Rey’s visions, the dream lover who brought her to climax with his words and hand in the bathtub some 10 minutes earlier. “You need to be more careful,” he told her, an edge of dangerous anger flitting at the ends of his words.

 

Rey bit her lip as she lay beneath him on her bed, embarrassment consuming her as she moved to sit up, suddenly aware she was naked and only barely covered with the damp bath towel.

She moved the corners to cover as much skin as possible as her cheeks went up in flames but, Mr. Ren stood watching, immobile save his labored breathing and clenching fists.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, struggling to sit up and remain covered at the same time.

 

 _I’m sorry, alpha,_ she thought. _I can be good. I can be so good. Let me be good for you,_ she thought.

 

“Shhh,” he murmured.

 

He uncurled one fist and brought a finger to Rey’s lips, tracing her bottom lip gently, outlining while Rey held her breath. Her chest heaved and her eyes were trapped watching his face while he gazed at his finger on her skin, carefully outlining her lips with his fingertip.

 

Every nerve lit up in her body and Rey sat up slightly, the towel grazing her stiffened nipples as it dipped towards them, the swell of her breasts exposed almost completely as she moved, still watching him.

 

 _Let me be good for you, alpha,_ she thought, _please, let me be so good for you,_ and she parted her lips wantonly, pulling his solid finger into her mouth and sucking it inside her wet mouth to the hilt, his eyes flickering to hers as he drew in a sharp breath. _Touch me, touch me, touch me,_ her mind begged.

 

She sucked on his finger hungrily, an offer of her neediness and he moaned a growl as his eyes narrowed and his scent spiked.

His other hand found her neck as she wrapped her tongue around his digit in her mouth, her palms flat on the bed beside her where she sat half-reclined against a nest of feather pillows as she stared up at him, and he stroked her throat with his thumb, grazing her scent gland with his fingers and then his wrist, leaving his aroma flooding into hers like a crashing of tidal waves.

 

Nothing but this mattered.

Nothing but this alpha in her room, close to her nude body, hard and hot and handsome and so close to where she needed him between her legs, so close and yet so clothed and still so far away.

Nothing but being filled with what this man had, what she needed from him, mattered.

Not the house, not the other guest, not the open door behind him, not the hurricane, nothing.

All that mattered now was what lay between them and it was not enough and too much all at once.

 

“Rey,” he warned in a strangled, gravelled tone, pulling his finger from her mouth gently, leaning in closer.

 

“Alpha,” she whispered and leaned in further, looking up at him worshipfully as he gazed down at her in so awed and heated a way as to make her blissfully glad the towel had nearly fallen away completely.

 

“Rey?” Chirrut called from the hallway behind him, breaking the moment in a heartbeat, the scene invisible to him technically but no less suggestive, no more vague than if he were watching it unfold in living color before him and Mr. Ren retreated hastily to the edge of the room, averting his eyes. “Are you alright? I heard a crash,” Chirrut said.

 

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry,” Rey said, covering herself and reaching for a discarded shirt from the floor, Mr. Ren turning towards the wall to offer her an unwanted opportunity at modesty. “Fell getting out of the damn bathtub,” she told him. “I’m fine.”

 

She scurried off the bed and moved towards Chirrut once she pulled her clothes on, her hair still a half-fallen mess of damp waves and curls, explaining while she dressed Mr. Ren had heard her one floor below and collected her and deposited her on the bed. No harm done.

 

Mr. Ren shook Chirrut’s hand as Rey introduced him but looked at Rey in the eye as she said his name, correcting her gently.

 

“It’s Ben. Actually,” he said. “Just Ben.”

 

Rey smiled as they shared a moment before she repeated, “Alright, just Ben. C’mon then. Both of you. Let’s go see about dinner,” and she led both men downstairs.

 

The evening had only begun and as she cast a glance toward the windows, the sun disappearing behind the darkening clouds piled on one another haphazardly in the sky above Savannah, Rey mused to herself as the two men followed her to the main floor, the calm may be ending and if she was lucky, the storm may be about to begin.

 

***********

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @rileybabe
> 
> you and me, sister.  
> you and me.


	3. Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My husband read Chapter 2 and said "meh. You can go filthier." 
> 
> *takes a swig of coffee with plenty of frou-frou creamer*  
> *cracks knuckles*  
> *rolls head side-to-side*
> 
>  
> 
> Challenge accepted.  
> Let's do this. 
> 
> xo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all know @rileybabe made this beautiful art.

 

_Ghostly with powder in the night,_

_Her hand upon his arm was white:_

_Her gown was light, and lightly blew,_

_A gauze of flame it burned him through._

 

\- Conrad Aiken, The Dance of Life

  
  
  


**********

 

Dinnertime had never before been such torment.

 

Now that she had taken a part of him into her mouth, Rey was distracted with need to the point of suffering as she moved around the kitchen, gathering items to set out for dinner alongside Chirrut and Ben.

 

While it had been a pleasant enough bath, cooling and sating as possible without a knot to seal the cum of a virile, delicious-scented alpha inside her it was nowhere close to quite enough. Like running alongside a finish line as opposed to crossing beyond it, her interactions with Ben afterward had only recalibrated her immediately back to square one, her body turning over the insufficient orgasm quickly, seeking something that would be far superior.

 

Something _he_ had.

 

Rey scurried around the Provincial white and French blue kitchen busily, collecting baguettes, cheese, wine, olives, a charcuterie collection of foods and she did her level best to avoid Ben’s eyes, feeling the weight of his stare palpably without looking his way to affirm it, knowing herself unable to keep from flashing heatedly head-to-toe if she caught his eye.

 

Setting a variety of foods on the platter between them, Rey chanced a glimpse at Ben across the island from her, seated on a chair as he poured three glasses of ice water and she studied his face for the first time, all of her faculties available and no partition between them.

 

It had to be the most stunningly beautiful face she’d ever beheld.

Hadn’t it?

Look at the angles, like something carved with a fine tool, a masterpiece, the magnum opus of an expert artist.

Look at the proportions of his features, as if a master craftsman had been generous when creating such a treasure, unable to restrain himself as he worked.

Look at his mouth, made for pleasure and pain.

Look at his eyes, aggressively guarded and endlessly vulnerable.

 

 _Who has a face like this_ , she wondered?

 

Starting at him for so long, she could only have assumed she’d be caught so it was no surprise when his eyes found hers. Chirrut spoke at length about the hurricane, about his past experiences as a longtime Savannah resident and his last stay at the Hawthorne House during a hurricane, some seven years earlier, while Rey and Ben stared at one another across the island on either side of him, silently.

 

“Have you ever been through a hurricane before, Ben?” Chirrut asked, reaching for a glass of water and making his way through a plate of food in front of him.

 

Ben’s eyes never left Rey’s as he answered.

“I haven’t,” he said, “but, I’ve had my fair share of blizzards in Chicago.”

 

“Ah, the Windy City,” Chirrut replied happily, “I love Chicago. It’s a wonderful city, isn’t it, what with the el and the diverse neighborhoods…”

 

He detailed thoughts about Ben’s hometown kindly and accurately, a museum docent to the end, conveyor of information and supplier of details but, Rey’s eyes never left Ben’s across the butcher block as her soul caught fire like dry kindling and her skin heated under her thin clothes as if she was traversing a desert at high noon.

 

Ben’s eyes held a secret and she needed to get closer to learn it.

 

There was far, far too much space between them.  

There was something about him, maybe his alpha pheromones beckoning her, maybe just who he himself was as a man that drew her like a bee to honey, and she had to forcibly redirect her attention to Chirrut when he said her name.

 

“Would you mind, Rey?” he asked.

 

“What was that?” she asked, breaking off eye contact with Ben and turning towards her ignored friend beside her. “Sorry, Chirrut, what were you saying?”

 

“I was just saying I was going to go feed BB and was wondering whether you would bring me to her food,” he said. “Think I’ll go sit with her on the porch for a while. We’ll need to start thinking about what to do with her when the storm gets here.”

 

“Oh, right, sure Chirrut, I’ll get her food for you,” Rey said, standing and retrieving the bowl for him to take outside.

 

Rey followed him out the back door of the kitchen, leaving Ben seated to watch them and she smiled as Chirrut made his way to his regular seat on the porch, BB immediately making herself at home between his ankles, purring and rubbing her arching tail between his calves, Chirrut giggling at her despite his mild allergies.

 

Rey softly closed the screen door and headed back to the island but, she felt herself unable to resist the temptation to seek out Ben’s presence further and she made her way towards him, stopping short a few feet away, her hand laying gently on the butcher block just out of his reach.

 

“Why did Amilyn call you Mr. Ren?” she asked, instinctively asking what was apparently a question which required immediate answering, even if Rey had been unaware of it until that moment.

 

Ben raised his chin and looked at Rey, perfectly eye-level while he sat perched on a stool and she stood in front of him.

 

“That’s my professional name,” he said. “I became a broker and took a professional name to distance myself from my family reputation years ago,” he explained. “But, it’s not who I really am.”

 

“And who are you really?” Rey asked, moving the slightest bit closer.

 

“I am what you see,” he said in a low voice, breaking the gaze they held to turn away from her imperceptibly, his eyes falling to the floor, “I am only what you see, Rey.”

 

Rey took a step closer, something in him broken, something summoning her that needed repair, the part of her brain wired to restore, to preserve triggered powerfully and she felt his hands slip over her hips as she moved to stand between his legs. He lifted his eyes to hers as she brought her hands up to his shoulders, his chiseled arms roped with muscle under her fingers as she trailed her hands up his neck until they cradled his jaw, a work of art in her grasp.

 

His hands skimmed her clothing as he looped his arms around her waist loosely, eye-to-eye with her as she studied him, his scent permeating her, body and soul as she crept closer and closer, finding what she craved in his touch, his smell, his eyes.

 

“Good,” she said, committing his eyes to memory as they held her gaze. “I like what I see,” she said resolutely, feeling his hands slip around her ass, a perfect fit in his broad hands, her core throbbing as his body moved closer to where she needed him.

 

“Is that right?” he asked, close enough that his breath fanned out over her face, tilting at an angle made for kissing, his voice a clever taunt designed to drive her mad and send her temperature spiking. “You like what you see, sweet girl?” he asked, a faint smile hinting at one corner of his mouth amusedly as she moved an inch closer, the air fraught with thick desire.

 

“Yes, alpha,” Rey answered, unable and unwilling to play a charade when something she was so desperate was here in her hands, her hesitations wilting in the heady heat of her attraction to him.

 

“Oh, Rey,” he groaned deeply, squeezing her flesh under his hands tightly, making the blood rush in her veins from her heart spreading outward, a forest fire jumping from limb to limb through her body. “You were made for devouring, weren’t you, good girl? And I am hungry for you,” he growled.

 

His hand traveled up to her hair as he spoke, and he pulled her hair until her neck craned firmly backward, her throat exposed nakedly to his face, his other hand anchoring her to the floor where she stood between his thighs, her bottom squeezed in his grip. Her scent gland throbbed for him in time with the words caught in her mind, not enough room in her throat to speak them aloud, persistent though they were in her thoughts, _yes, alpha, yes, there, yes, yes,_ and she closed her eyes as she felt his mouth skim the skin of her neck gently as he held her throat exposed to himself firmly.

 

“There is nothing I won’t give you,” he promised into her skin, his words vibrating directly into her scent glands, into her throat, into her blood and bone and marrow. “Is that what you want, pretty omega?” he licked her throat wide and slow only once as he let her go and Rey went nearly weak in the knees, sure only his hands held her in a vertical position.

 

His hand loosened as Rey’s head lowered to look him in the eye, her heart racing and her mind blaring certainty. “You know that it is, alpha. You know that I need you.”

 

Ben smiled at her and Rey bit her lip in anticipation, the swirl of assurances and ardor of her intentions making her delirious so that she barely heard when Poe entered the room behind them.

 

“Woah, princess, hey,” he announced, bursting through the back door leading from the porch where Chirrut sat, “sorry. Didn’t know you had a… _thing_ …happening in here. Like this.”

 

Rey untangled herself from Ben and turned to face Poe, his alpha scent colliding with Ben’s in the space around Rey’s head painfully, a train wreck of competing vibes making her dizzy.

 

“Poe Dameron,” he said, offering a masculine hand of greeting to Ben, all posturing and protective, moving past Rey to meet Ben head-on. “My wife Ami’s the owner of the inn, here,” he informed Ben. “Just came by to check in on the place,” he said, taking a slow twirl on his heel while surveying the kitchen, “make sure everything is… _intact_ ,” he said pointedly, returning his gaze to Ben at the last word.

 

Ben stood and moved in front of Rey instinctively, shielding her from Poe’s view by half as he did so, a mild twitch under his left eye and the faintest glimmer of a snarl settled into his lips, several inches and a good deal more width over Poe when he came chest-to-chest with him.

 

Ben shook his hand with two pumps and a set jaw, a cool wind trapped in his stare. “Ben Solo,” he replied, nothing beyond offered freely.

 

Rey inhaled softly, unaware she’d been holding her breath during what felt like a standoff and she moved to stand beside Ben as opposed to behind. She could help in this situation and she wanted to. She may be an omega in heat and still in dire need of a good lay with a man who was equipped to give her what she needed but, she was a human woman after all. She was well versed in diffusing just such a situation as this one, and watching the interaction before her now, she decided separation was as good a tactic to use as any.

 

“We were just going to head out,” Rey told Poe. “Ben and I. We were just going to go for a drive while the weather holds before it gets stormy in the morning. Get some fresh air.” She glanced up at Ben who met her eyes, agreeability and malleability assuring her _yes, omega, whatever you need, your alpha provides,_ and she looked back at Poe. “We’re good. But, thanks for stopping by, Poe.”

 

“Sure. Sure,” Poe replied slowly, scrutinizing Ben’s face and drawing conclusions he held as close to the chest as a hand of cards. “I’ll just come by tomorrow then. Make sure everything’s still in good shape.”

 

“Great,” Rey said cheerfully. “Thanks. See you then. And thank Amilyn for sending you over would you, please?”

 

Poe nodded once and after one lengthy glance at Ben, he left through the swinging porch door, leaving Rey alone once again with the alpha driving her mad, driving her to distraction, driving her to make up plans and dismiss her boss’ husband.

 

It was as good a plan as any though, since what had felt like an exclusive spot made for two people was lately feeling more like a frat house teeming with men of all ages, and she felt her heart speed up as she devised a plan to offer to Ben, wanting to escape with him.

 

Beside her, Ben radiated annoyance and frustration, likely with Poe but, it gave Rey enough pause that she decided to offer him her hand instead of her pussy quite yet, reminding herself she wasn’t being deprived, she could tolerate this, she was in control, she was a human woman, not a dog.

 

“Will you come with me?” she asked. “Truly?”

 

“Anywhere,” he nodded, “literally, anywhere, sweet girl.”

 

Rey’s heart sped up and she poked her head out the back door to advise Chirrut they’d be gone a few hours before leading the way to the car parked at the curb in front of the house, still several hours away from any rain, judging from the clouds overhead.

 

She climbed into her modest car beside Ben, smiled at him, immediately overwhelmed at the power of his scent filling the enclosed space around her.

 

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she said, her head swimming with his nearness, his size beside her, his aroma seeping into every nook and cranny.

 

Ben picked up her hand and brought her wrist to his lips, sucking her pulse point, then her beating, needy scent gland, then kissing her knuckles, all the while Rey’s brain thrummed with submission, with want, with desperation until he looked at her and gave an order, righting her in reality.

 

“It’s a brilliant idea,” he said. “Drive,” he motioned with his eyes forward to the road before them and in a few minutes, Rey was free of the quaint blocks of picturesque community, driving hard for the Georgia coast, the bracing breeze of the storm over the Atlantic calling her like a siren song, her eyes rooted to the pavement in front of her car, a storm of epic proportions growing with every mile they consumed.

 

*********

 

Tybee Island was only an hour away and the time spent in the car beside Ben was at once both exhilarating in anticipation and torturous in deprivation.

Any second without his mouth on her body, his skin under her hands, his heat inside her aching, ready body was one moment too many and though she’d been through plenty of heats before, some even survived with the help of an accommodating alpha, it had most assuredly never been like this.

 

This desperate, this potent, this dangerous.

 

Every hotel, then every motel, then every abandoned alleyway they passed, Rey considered pulling over.

She drove with the windows down, an effort to steady herself beside the most incredibly alluring scent she’d ever been exposed to, and they learned one another as they talked while the breeze carried their essences towards and beyond one another, the crosswind in the car teasing them each with the other’s fragrances, twisting them towards and then away from one another, a dance of sex in the air.

 

Rey slowed at a beach access, the lot of six parking spaces vacant besides her car and as her feet hit the ground she inhaled deeply, salt and storm bringing a fresh start to her lungs, a smile to her face, an assurance this was a good idea to mind.

 

The beach was always a good idea.

She felt clearer just being here.

 

Ben took her hand as they instinctively walked towards the sand just beyond the car, looking at her face for confirmation and when their fingers laced, Rey felt herself sink into a sweet quicksand of affection, moving to assure him with actions if not words as she captured his one, huge hand between both of hers as they walked, holding his arm in front of her body like a shield.

 

She could almost feel his chest swell proudly beside her, his back straightening slightly as they left shoes behind and dug their feet into the cool, dry sand as they walked.

 

The sky was darkening in the dusky light, shades of silver layered like folded blankets over the sky, gray stretched in every color as far as the eye could see as the clouds gathered overhead. 

And mercifully, miraculously, not another soul anywhere her eyes landed.

 

She’d never had sex on a beach before but goddamn.

 

The squeak of cool, gritty sand crunched under their feet as Ben led Rey to the shore, the murky Atlantic roiling fiercely under the hurricane’s outer bands of cloud cover above. They made their way to a swinging wooden bench hanging from a free arch of wood, a canopy of dark sky above them and Rey’s toes barely skidded along the crushed shell below as Ben’s foot, firmly planted flat on the beach lifted them into a gentle motion, back and forth in time with the breeze.

 

Rey sighed audibly and sank into Ben as he moved his heavy arm to encircle her.

 

This might be heaven, if not for the increasingly demanding tenderness in her gut, her throbbing cunt leaking a cry of plea to the alpha beside her.

 

Ben’s movement on the swing became a metronome of movement, a lullaby of motion as Rey breathed in the salt air, the man beside her, the saturated perfection of the moment. She had barely looked up at his face beside her when her eyes slipped closed in response to his lips meeting hers, divinity realized here in his mouth, in his arms.

 

She was drift.

 

Her body curved towards Ben’s as she reached up to hold his face in her hands, his arms both captivating her frame in his embrace, the swing under them moving in time with the tide beyond, back and forth as the waves crashed beyond them under dark, dry skies.

 

His tongue purged the dark ache from her mouth and replaced it with the intoxication of a wine more delicious than anything bottled, his scent tangible down her throat, sending ribbons of wetness through her panties, her mouth watering at his flavor.

 

He growled as he raked his hands through her hair, angling her for a better taste of her and Rey whimpered at the delight of being dominated, devoured indeed.

 

“More,” she breathed into his open mouth, “more. _Alpha, more,_ ” she whispered, both begging and offering.

 

The rough movement of his hand down her body as reply was everything she wished for, the swing rocking beneath them as Ben’s massive hand trailed her body, stopping to cup and palm her small breast, tweaking her tight nippled as he stopped kissing her for a moment to watch his own hand on her, Rey panting as she watched his eyes trail her torso.

 

“This is mine,” he promised, squeezing firmly.

 

“Yes, alpha,” she replied, breathlessly.

 

“And this is mine, sweet omega. _Mine,_ ” he rumbled, his hand cupping her hot, needy sex through her clothes as his eyes met Rey’s.

 

She swallowed around the lump of passion in her throat as she gasped at his touch. “Yes, alpha,” she begged.

 

He held her eyes, the swing moving rhythmically as he insistently unbuttoned her shorts while Rey mentally swore she’d never wear anything with such limited access again around this man, and as he reached in to swipe at her wet pussy, he withdrew his fingers to plunge them into his mouth briefly, furrowing his brow and squeezing his eyes closed as Rey watched him, panting, her whole body aching to be claimed, filled, experienced.

 

“Perfect,” he murmured, pulling her to him more tightly where they sat swinging on the hanging wooden bench, the dark sky closing in on them like a closing door to a secret room. “So perfect for me, sweet omega,” he assured her as he offered his wet finger to Rey.

 

Her tongue darted out to lick his finger lightly, her eyes on his as he watched her taste their flavors mixed, the combination a heady blend of spicy heat and syrupy sweetness, before slipping his fingers back inside her wet cunt, smoothing her swollen edges and blissfully massaging her throbbing angles.

 

When his fingers entered her, thick and fast, pushing the swing backward with the might of his hand’s thrust, Rey’s eyes flew open with the stunning sensation, _so full, alpha, so big and so right and so full,_ she thought, unable to speak as he rocked her body and the waves crashed.

 

She had no idea how many fingers he used to claim her pussy.

No idea how long he pumped in and out of her, holding her in his arms, licking her throat, scenting her gland with his manliness, built to deliver her from the heated madness he had driven her to.

No idea how to go on without this feeling, without him ever again.

No idea how it happened exactly but, her hands threaded through his hair as she pulled her breast from under her shirt and offered her bare, peaked nipple to his mouth, bringing his mouth to lick her there as he fucked his fingers into her wet cunt, each lap of his tongue and press of his hand inside her rocking them both, Ben’s feet anchoring them to the earth, his arm bringing her closer to his face.

 

The sun dipped below the edge of the ocean but, Rey’s eyes were closed and the clouds hid it from view anyhow.

The sun, in the end, unnecessary, as superfluous as gravity as Ben both anchored her to the sand and set her flying far above it.

 

She crumbled into his hands, wet and pulsing and gasping as his tongue left her wet breast, cold and exposed to the night sky, and he captured her cries in his mouth as he kissed her deeply, sucking her tongue inside him and trading her sobs for release as she fell further into his arms, the swing slowing as her heart rate calmed.

 

After a moment, Rey lay her head back against Ben’s bicep across the back of the swing, feeling him button her shorts as he removed his hand, lower her tank top over her taut breast, and she looked back at him as she raised her face towards him with glazed eyes.

 

“Oh, Ben,” she said lazily, gratefully, a blissful smile gracing her face lazily in the dark night.

 

He smiled and scooped her into his strong arms, one hand under her knees and another still behind her back, cradling her for the second time that day as Rey wondered the last time anyone had held her as such. Ever.

 

She rested her head against his chest, leaning up to lick his neck, gorging on his scent, his goodness, his generosity as he carried her to the car, her feet dangling helplessly, happily bobbing along, dependent.

 

“I’m going to take you home now,” he told her as he deposited her on the ground beside the passenger side door, a look of wonder still flaring in her eyes as she looked up at him adoringly, content to listen. “And then I am going to fuck you like you need to be fucked. By an alpha who wants to fuck you so well that I swear to god, Rey, if you are not pregnant with my baby by morning it will be a fucking miracle, I’m going to fill you with my cum so hard and so good, I will only promise to try not to break you into pieces, sweet girl.”

 

He held her head tightly in his palm, facing upward at him as he spoke, Rey’s head cradled as she smiled into his eyes.

 

“Yes, please. _Alpha,_ ” she grinned wickedly before kissing him lightly. "Break me apart."

 

Ben shook his head as if in distress and removed himself to the driver’s side after depositing her in the car and Rey curled up and turned to watch him as he commanded the car towards Savannah, his massive cock hard and visible in his pants, his hands white-knuckled on the wheel as he worked his jaw and glared at the road beneath them, each minute spent traveling a minute too long.

 

He had time to bring her to climax twice more before they arrived at Hawthorne House as he fingered her inside her unbuttoned pants, his hand moving to caress and pinch and graze her exposed breast, naked in the dark car as he drove, topless and available and shameless as they drove under gathering cloud in the inky night.

 

What would come next would be her ultimate undoing and her curative treatment.

 

Rey could barely wait.

 

**************

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for my sweet Nance @ntantzen
> 
> You're such a gem.  
> xo  
> Berry


	4. Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @rileybabe, who made this lovely art, and I affectionately refer to this chapter as "The Sinfest."
> 
> I was a good girl once, honest, I was.  
> Good girls rarely make history, they say. Also, I'll bet their smut isn't worth shit. 
> 
> Here's hoping this is. 
> 
>  
> 
> xox  
> Berry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for Capnwidow, a more darling and devoted reader and commenter surely cannot exist.  
> thankful for you, friend!  
> xoxox sweet Cappy!
> 
> and for my husband who kept walking around the house saying “I’m just worried about the windows. Can you get someone to board up the windows? It’s a hurricane. I’m just worried about the windows.”

 

 

 

_“His trembling hands went out to her,_

_Her cool flesh made his senses blur;_

_While, head thrown backward, sinking dim,_

_She opened wide her soul to him”_

\- Conrad Aiken,  Dance of Life 

 

**********

 

There was no chance in all hell this wasn’t happening tonight.

 

Rey glanced over at Ben one final time before clicking her seatbelt open and dragging her tank top down over her head, every inch of skin protesting the loss of his attentions as she righted her clothes, her hair, her countenance to look less like a debauched woman ready to be fucked into oblivion and more like the responsible B & B employee who was overseeing the care of one guest, one aging friend and one tabby cat.

 

Suddenly shy, she hesitated before exiting the car, stalling to be sure the spell wouldn’t be broken when her feet hit the pavement of the curb beside Hawthorne House where Ben had parked her car, searching his face beside her in the driver’s seat for confirmation.

 

Even in the dark, his eyes seared hers, an unmistakable ferocity signaling to her she wasn’t imagining things, there was no spell to be broken, this was real and it was _on._

 

“I’m going to have to lock up,” she informed him quietly, all of her brave and reckless sexuality subdued by the necessity of banal details she needed to cover.

 

Ben probably would have smiled, she realized but, this was not a time for casual pleasantries, he merely nodded and stepped out of the car and met her on the curb, taking her hand in his and walked beside her to the front door of the mansion.

Thick darkness settled around them like a humid blanket, overly warm and cascading around them hotly.

Rey steadied herself as she breathed him in beside her, relishing his height protecting her from the dark quiet of the square, the threat of loneliness, the memory of dissatisfied heats.

 

This was a heat that would be satiated, this one would not go unattended and the thought bloomed hope and gratitude in her heart as they stepped into the cool, muted foyer of the house together.

 

All was silent, beautiful, asleep. Every light was illuminated on the main floor but, Chirrut’s door was closed and with no one else present, Rey moved to begin to extinguish lights as they walked, hand-in-hand through the first floor.

 

Wall.

Sconce.

Table lamp.

Floor lamp.

 

One by one, Rey led Ben through the house clicking, twisting, flipping lights closed, the evening creeping behind them thankfully, a tired house greeting night with open arms as they walked together through every room, welcoming the dark together.

 

Finally, as they reached the back kitchen door, Rey let BB run inside, and she quickly made her way to the top of the kitchen cabinetry behind them, content to hide until morning in her lofty perch, and Rey locked the outside door with a click before turning to Ben.

Silently, she lifted her face to his and instinctively knowing he was waiting for her to offer her mouth to him, he ran his hands into her hair and kissed her soundly.

 

Rey traced his back under her hands, teasing herself by keeping her fingers above his shirt, unwilling to appease her desire to feel his skin yet, and she looked into his eyes, set in moonlight streaming into the silent kitchen around them while he looked at her.

 

Ben shook his head slowly as he studied her, a look of inquiry clouding his eyes as his thumbs traced her cheekbones.

 

 _“Where_ have you _been?”_ he asked her emphatically.

 

“Waiting,” she told him.

 

Why should she lie?

She knew all too well she had been. All her life, really, and there was no need to hold back the truth of herself now.

 

He studied her before kissing her again and Rey pulled herself tightly to his wide chest, breathing him in deeply until she felt her skin break out in a slow sweat, desperate to cool the fever inside her, a wildfire spreading fast.

 

“Upstairs,” she said and took him by the hand again, leading him through the unlit house by the hand until they reached the stairs together. Rey walked with one hand on the bannister towards the first landing where she turned and glanced down at the foyer podium, that spot where she had heard his voice so many hours earlier - _was it that very day?_ \- and she smiled secretly to herself, amazed at the twists her day had brought that led her here to him right now.

 

Overcome, she turned to Ben and ran her hands up his chest, the force of her kiss pushing him against the wall behind him, so overwhelmed at her good luck to be with him in this moment she was helpless to wait another second to be in his arms.

She was too affected, she was too fortunate, she was too impatient to wait another step, another moment, another interruption to get what belonged to her and when he scooped her up into his arms, she wrapped her legs around him determinately, unwilling to spend any more time disconnected from such a man.

 

Leaning her head back, she welcomed his strength around her as he littered her throat with kisses, heading for his room.

 

 _Yesyesyesyesyes,_ she thought with abandon, promising herself she would kill anyone who came between her and consummating this moment with this man in the next two minutes.

The sky could fall, the heavens could split, the oceans could rage, the earth might open up and consume itself and life as they knew it might end but Rey was going to lay down with this man in her arms and give herself to him or die trying and no one was going to stop her.

 

“Are you…is this…” he began as he laid her on the bed, standing over her in an approximation of the position Rey had found herself in earlier that day in her own bed, rescued by him similarly from a concussion and lightheadedness just hours earlier.

 

Her fevered confidence returned as she looked up at his last bits of delay, his gentlemanly deference bleeding out and she grinned as lewd a smile at him as she ever had as she instructed him, “Ben, lock the door.”

 

His inhale through flaring nostrils breathed in and his last vestiges of hesitation exhaled, he turned to the door and locked it tightly, turning back to her as he unbuttoned his shirt with his eyes locked on hers.

 

Rey stood and watched his eyes as she removed her tank top again, her braless breasts gulping in the still air of the room hungrily, begging for attention as she slipped her shorts to her ankles and stepped out. Ben’s shirt dropped off his shoulders and Rey let her eyes linger lustily as she dragged her gaze over his chest and stomach.

 

If his face was a holy masterpiece, his body was her utter destruction.

 

She felt a drop of sweat run between her breasts as her chest heaved while she looked at him, making its way slowly towards her navel.

She reached to pull off her panties, drenched and useless as they were, the last clothing keeping her from Ben and he took a step towards her, gently grabbing her by the wrist to stop her.

 

“Stop,” he told her, all alpha, all domination, all insistence and beauty and strength.

 

He held her hand in mid air and laced his fingers with hers as he turned her around until her back was flush with his chest and his voice was rough with desire in a way that made Rey’s stomach roll painfully.

 

“Bend over, my beautiful omega,” he said, leading her to the side of the bed. “I get to see your cunt wet for me,” he said as he left her hands to herself, pushing her gently with a strong, large hand to the middle of her back.

 

She felt him drop to his knees behind her and skim his thumbs over the abused fabric covering her skin and she moved her legs wide to encourage him. His touch was torture, a tease of friction against her engorged and desperate pussy, every touch a taunt of connection and she whimpered into the blankets below her mouth until he _rescued_ her - he _remedied_ her, he _released_ her, he _ransomed_ her from pain and fire and spread her wide to drink in her wetness, his tongue a merciful angel of perfect dark magic.

 

“Yes,” she moaned aloud now, unaware and unbothered by the volume of her incredible relief, “yes, Alpha, yes, _thank you, thank you, thank you,_ ” her voice nearly a sob of gratitude at the reprieve he offered with his tongue and lips giving attention to her neediness.

 

His groaned into her cunt, licking her dripping pussy hungrily, lapping at the cum he had inspired for hours already, all the times she had already climaxed today picturing his beautiful face, his beautiful cock, his beautiful hands, his beautiful self, and she quivered as he fucked his fingers into her, bent over and legs spread, panties pulled aside with his face buried inside her pussy behind her on his knees, bare chested and generous and she cried his name as she came hard on the bed that belonged to him.

 

 _“Ben,”_ he heard her, as she lifted her face from the bed to cry out for him, disbelieving there could be a name on her lips but his as she came ever again, wanting him to know he had given her to this, he had brought her here and she felt him lick his way from her pussy straight up the back, over her asshole, up to the cheeks, up her spine, and finally he lifted himself away from her as she caught her breath.

She was helpless, spent, weak as she turned over and threw her arms wide as she faced him.

 

“Mine, sweet girl,” he reiterated, unbuckling his pants as Rey clambered backward up onto the bed behind her, watching his face as he smiled slightly and moved towards her, naked now and dripping as he stalked towards her, a predator, a hunter, an _alpha._ “You’re _mine,_ now.” he growled.

 

“Yes, alpha,” she agreed, as she laid on the pillows and felt Ben slide her panties off, dropping them in the pile of discarded clothes. “Make me yours.”

 

Question and answer time was ended and the main event was upon them.

Rey quieted her nerves when she saw how big he was, how aching and pained his cock was as he hovered over her, his seed dripping onto her bare belly below him already as he held himself aloft and she moaned as she dragged her hand lazily through it on her skin, a whimper leaving her mouth as she ran a finger over her nipple and into her mouth, his flavor as tantalizingly perfect as she knew it would be.

 

He slicked himself between her legs, between the lips of her wet cunt over and over, gently, carefully, bumping her clit with every pass until her groans were so loud she arched her back off the bed, the sweet torment more than she could bear and she gasped loudly, her hands flying to his back in a flailing, panicked hug as he pushed himself deeply inside her in one movement, her mind stuttering with the sheer force and size of him filling her to overfull, pressing her apart until the seams of her body strained and her breath came in a great swallow and her eyes rolled back in fulfillment.

 

Every thrust of his hips was her ecstasy, every press of his stomach against hers, his chest above her, his hands around her got her higher than a kite, happier than a bride, and tears spilled down her cheeks in humbled thanksgiving as she kissed his face, his cheeks, his jaw as he buried his cock inside her and his face in her hair.

 

“I’ve never,” she began, unsure how to convey what she was feeling to him, already convinced in a single moment she was wrecked now, obliterated, incapable of finding words to process all he had just done to claim her, unsure whether she should.

 

“I know,” he said as he pulled back enough to see her eyes, his body climbing closer to fill her over and over, each drive of his cock into her a promise, each snap of his hips a kiss.

 

Their hands laced instinctively and Rey smiled at him above her, watching his face as he searched her eyes, his dark hair falling towards her, his lips reaching down to snatch hers up again.

Whatever he found, she only hoped it would satisfy him as he satisfied her.

 

 _Take anything, alpha,_ she thought as her body received him eagerly, _take it all._

 

“Do you want my cum, sweet girl?” he asked, his mouth sucking on her throat, melting her from the outside, in. “Do you want my knot?”

 

“Oh _god,_ alpha, Ben, oh my god, _yes._ Please, please, knot me and give me what I need,” she begged, unashamed.

 

“Come for me, pretty omega, he said, effort and passion coloring his face as he looked down at Rey, “come for me, Rey, and I will fill you up.”

 

His fingers trailed to her breast, twisting her nipple, grazing and squeezing until she quaked with another climax, Ben’s wicked pride smirking at her nearly enough to bring her to orgasm over and over, his hot masculine pride escalating her higher than before, written blatantly on his face in a way that made her fantasize already about riding him hard, making him come in her mouth, getting him off.

 

Her head lifted off the pillow as she raised herself to lick his throat, biting his scent gland.

He stilled just the slightest, searching her eyes again, and without warning dove to her neck, biting hard enough to break skin before groaning into her gland as he came in her, filling her with his cum and his knot and breathing his exhaustion into her skin, leaving all of himself as he had promised, giving her everything, keeping nothing from her.

 

This morning he had been a stranger to her, a voice, a pair of pants, a throat, a set of hands, a face.

 

As he rose from her neck and kissed her, sucking her lips and tongue as he moaned into her mouth, his cum spilling and pulsing inside her, waves of pleasure breaking around both of them over and over, gently and pure every time he filled her further, Rey knew what had just happened shook the world beneath, changed the course of time and ruined and recreated something wholly new for her.

 

From now on, time would be marked in two ways: before Ben and after Ben but, she would never, ever wonder who her intended alpha was now.

 

If it was anyone but this man, she would not believe it.

He’d found her and now she was spoken for.

 

She pushed his hair off his brow and kissed his neck where she had bitten him, slightly swollen, licking tenderly over and over, as he did the same to her, both of them healing one another with their mouths, telling one another things their words could not yet.

 

“That was incredible,” she whispered, feeling him pulse cum in her at her words, his body lightly shuddering as he sucked harder on her neck. "Thank you, alpha,” she said adoringly.

 

Ben looked at her and let his eyes wander her face before speaking.

 

“That was otherworldly, Rey,” he replied. “Thank _you._ ”

 

Rey smiled, knowing she was the one with the demanding heat cycle, the body accustomed to the demands of a calendar, the incessant requirements of her omega biology.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” she smiled up at him, tracing his jaw with her fingers, scratching at his stubble and kissing him lightly, dropping her head back to the pillows while his body stayed tied to hers with his knot in place.

 

His brow furrowed as he looked at her.

“Truly?” he asked. “You’re saying that truly?”

 

Rey made a face of incredulous retort at him. “Ben,” she insisted, “truly. Maybe the most beautiful person I’ve ever known.”

 

At this he rolled them onto their sides without separating themselves, pulling Rey’s leg up over his hip, chasing her hair behind her shoulder with his hand as he gazed at her beside him.

 

“This from a creature so lovely, so strong, so light I am genuinely at a loss,” he said quietly. “Otherworldly.”

 

There was no better response to this than a kiss and Rey was content to kiss this man in this bed for as long as they had, for as long as she could, and so she kissed him until she had her share of his lips, his scent, his flavor, his touch and when he pulled her stride him to ride him without his cock ever leaving her body and ready for her once again, she ran her hands over his skin gladly, longingly, wondering how she would ever do without her alpha again.

 

“My pretty omega,” he said, crooning up at her as she brought him higher and higher with her, his hands running over her breasts, her hips, her stomach until he met her clit and reached to climax her again, touching her with a fervency that made her scream with delight, filling her to overflowing with seed that healed a painful, clawing need in her empty womb, satisfying her completely. “My beautiful omega. This pretty little cunt was made for me, wasn’t it?”

 

“Yes, alpha, yes,” she agreed. “For you,” she said, knowing the truth in her heart even as her head forced her not to hold him to it later. “For you, alpha, all for you.”

 

“Take it, sweet girl, take it all,” he said, coming and coming and coming inside her until her eyes rolled back and her body relaxed and she sunk to his chest with fatigue.

 

“Rest, sweet girl,” he soothed Rey as she slid to the bed beside him, his knot sealing his seed inside her as her eyes slipped closed in the hot, dark night. “Good girl,” he assured her, Rey smiling before sleep took her under. “Good girl.”

 

Rey’s hands rested on his chest and her leg reached around his hip as she curled under Ben’s chin and slipped into sleep.

Tomorrow the sky would fall, the heavens would split, the oceans would rage, the earth might open up and consume itself and life as they knew it might end but no one would ever take this night from her, this man from her unless she willed it and her last thought before she drifted off, Ben’s hands caressing her face and his scent heavy in her heart as she breathed him in, was one of defiance.

 

 _Let anyone try,_ she thought.

_Just let anyone try._

 

***********

 

The stillness of the evening sky gave way to the rain of early morning, and every moment spent wrapped in one another overnight, the joining of their bodies every few hours requiring them to remain tangled into one another only grew the bond between them more so that when the knock came at the door, Rey didn’t even hide her body as Ben left the bed to greet whomever knocked.  

 

She smiled languidly as she stretched, dreamily euphoric, more at home in Ben’s bed, surrounded by his scent and filled with his cum spilling from her body than she had been in this house any of the last 6 months she’d worked there.

 

His bottom winked at her as he walked to the door, his dirty smile over his shoulder at her as he pulled on pants a signal to her he knew she was watching, and Rey wasn’t the least bit embarrassed. There was no room for embarrassment when you wanted someone as she wanted this man, and want him she still did.

Very much so.

 

She bit her lip and smiled as he slid his arms into a shirt and buttoned three buttons, tossing his hair out of his eyes as he pulled the door open.

 

Poe was at the door to Ben’s room.

He wanted to hang wood over the windows to board them up against the storm.

He was going to the store to get items they’d need and he wanted Ben to help secure the windows with him when he returned.

He would be back soon.

 

He didn’t sound altogether friendly, and Rey heard a note of skepticism, of distrust and challenge in his tone but Ben just listened, nodded, agreed, closed the door, and walked over to the bed again.

 

He sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed Rey’s hair out of her eyes.

 

“How are you, sweet girl?” he asked.

 

“Come back to bed and I’ll show you,” she said, tugging on his sleeve.

 

“We should get up and shower,” he said, “he’ll be back. I don’t want to get you fired.”

 

“I don’t care about any of that right now,” she said, playfully pouting and meaning every word unequivocally. “I just want you, Ben.”

 

 _“Fuck,”_ he muttered under his breath, “why must every word out of your mouth be the hottest thing I’ve ever heard?”

 

“Come to bed,” she moaned again, tugging on his shirt, “please, Ben. _Please._ Make me feel better, alpha. Please. I need you.”

 

There would be no more arguments, of that Rey was sure as he moved to climb on top of her with a low growl.

She’d need to free him of his clothes, and make quick work of it if her waking body and already-climbing temperature was any indicator of her need but, then again, it’s just what she had in mind.

 

There was no question, the heat of her body was a requisite of her omega chemistry, the DNA which built her into a baby-craving machine, the endless desire to be mated by a powerful alpha as ancient a ritual as life itself and Rey was storied in all the legend, the history, the ancestry of the line she carried on but, with this man inside her, none of that mattered.

With his body encompassing her, his cock inside her, all she knew was she was his - she would be absolutely his - and when she came it was with his name on her lips, the dream of his child in her belly, his tongue in her mouth, his seed in her womb, his breath down her throat, his hands on her skin, his scent in her mind, his person all she knew, all she craved, all she needed, all all all.

 

All was Ben.

 

*********

 

They made quick work of the window boarding as Chirrut and Rey laid out food and played with BB in the kitchen, trying to keep her happy as she attempted to scurry outside to the blackening skies.

 

The rain splattered heavily, large drops leaving messy streaks against every window still available as Ben and Poe worked together, an unhappily matched team to guard the house against the hurricane, efficient and cooperative with one another as a means of speeding their time together, Rey mused, as opposed to a seamless union birthed in friendship.

The job had to get done and she had a feeling neither man could get it done soon enough to please himself.

 

Ben hurried upstairs to dry off and change clothes as soon as they were finished, rain dripping from his navy, v-neck t-shirt which lay plastered against his muscular body, his jeans stuck to every inch of his legs and Rey had to physically restrain herself, holding her hands under the seat of her chair to keep from running and jumping into his arms like a dramatic movie character.

 

He looked over at her from beneath a fringe of wet hair and met her eyes before heading up the stairs and Rey felt her whole self throb, her heart reach out for him and her body heat rise.

 

She spent the next 10 minutes trying to finagle a way out of the conversation with Poe and Chirrut downstairs while trying to focus on them instead of the man upstairs without her.

 

“Well,” Poe said, “think we got the old girl locked up nice and tight. Shouldn’t be too much ol’ Molly the hurricane can throw at her now that can hurt her too very much.”

 

“Great,” Rey said enthusiastically, trying hard to feign legitimate concern when her mind was elsewhere.

 

“Uh, Rey,” Poe said, toweling off his hair and looking at her from across the kitchen, “let me ask you something. Alright? Now, I’m not trying to pry but just, bear with me a moment, would you do that?”

 

Rey inhaled shakily as she felt criticism barrel towards her and she braced herself, nodding to Poe and raising her eyebrows as invite to continue.

 

“Listen, I don’t know what is going on between you and Mr. Ren there, princess,” he said, “and I know it’s not exactly any of my business. Exactly. But, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

 

In the big house, with the windows boarded up on the first floor, there wasn’t much to hear in the way of noise anymore, and the room was dark as a tomb, save for the light from upstairs filtering down the staircase from above. Rey tilted her face to the staircase and envisioned just making a run for it, heading for Ben but, she steeled herself and answered, instead.

 

“You’re right. Yes, it’s my business, Poe, but I appreciate your concern. And I am completely sure of what I am doing,” she said with as calm a smile as she could manage, hoping it conveyed maturity.

 

“Alright, yeah. Okay. I get it, I get it,” he said, sounding every bit like he didn’t get it, he wasn’t okay with it and it wasn’t alright. “All I know is, this guy has not one but two names, very little backstory and one pretty stoic demeanor. Not to mention his face.”

 

Rey felt herself bristle.

“I know plenty of his backstory,” she said, realizing she really didn’t. “And I know both his names,” she said, knowing herself welcome to use whichever name for him she wished. “And his face may be the most dear to me in all the world,” she said defensively, not willing to leave this conversation unchallenged, her chin rising slightly.

 

“Alright princess, okay,” Poe said, holding his hands aloft in defeat. “I’m not your dad, I’m sorry,” he said, sheepishly. “Ami and I just really love you. Ya know? We don’t want to see you get hurt is all.”

 

“Thank you Poe,” Rey said, forgivingly, feeling the rage die down in her spirit at his apology, knowing he had raised good questions but, realizing her loyalty to Ben lay deeper than his questions. “I know you do. I appreciate it. But Poe, this is the man I want. And I do not apologize for that.”

 

Poe shook his head and left his hands raised in defeat, lowering his head in respect of her statements and wishes.

He turned slightly and motioned over his shoulder at the staircase.

 

“You be okay here with him?”

 

“I have everything I need. Yes, Poe. Thank you.”

 

“Alrighty,” he said with a shrug, heading for the back door to leave. “See you probably tomorrow, after she’s rolled through, princess.”

 

Chirrut appeared in the room a moment later, and Rey met him at the foot of the stairs, his rolling suitcase behind him and his red-tipped cane in his hand.

 

“Where are you going?” Rey nearly cried. “Chirrut! What’s going on?”

 

“I’m going to go to Poe and Amilyn’s, I think,” he said with a pat to Rey’s arm. “Makes more sense.”

 

“But, but…Chirrut, you’re my friend and…wait…” Rey stuttered, pain and sadness at odds with logic.

 

“My dear,” he said, wisdom and kindness softening every word, “I hope you don’t think it indelicate if I tell you I may be a beta, but I know well enough what’s happening to you. And I may be a blind man but, I can see well enough what’s going on between you and Ben.”

 

Rey blushed furiously as he finished and walked towards the door Poe had left through.

“But, Chirrut,” she protested, “you were going to stay here and we were going to keep each other safe,” she said. “You’re my friend. And I’m yours. And we keep each other safe,” she said.

 

“Rey. There is a time to be safe and there is a time to be brave,” Chirrut said, reaching for BB who was winding herself between his legs at his feet. “Go be brave now and I will do the same. No worries. Alright? Oh, and I’ll take BB,” he said over his shoulder as Poe led him down the back stairs to the waiting car in the rain.

 

“Don’t want to scandalize the poor cat with you two lovebirds flitting around!” he shouted over his shoulder to her.

 

Poe waved as he ran in the pouring rain to the driver’s side after shutting Chirrut in the car and Chirrut did the same from inside, sure Rey was watching from the dry kitchen which she assuredly was, tears in her eyes as they drove away.

 

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand in the kitchen, quiet and lonely as a tomb, lightless and dreary, ensconced in a bleak darkness that squashed her happiness when all at once, the house fell completely still and the remainder of the power clicked off, the house dead and empty as a grave with two souls trapped inside.

 

Fear shot through Rey intensely as the deep dark closed in on her tightly and she screamed the only word she could think as loudly as she could, racing from the stifling kitchen to the stairs.

 

“Ben!” she cried. “Ben!”

 

There was no sweeter noise in all her life than a man of his size running to her in the dark, down the sunlit stairs and into her world like a champion and savior, and she she flew into his arms, sadness and fears lifting like dew from the grass in sunshine, she found his lips as easily as if she’d been born to kiss him all her life, created to fit inside his arms and she relaxed into his strong embrace as she breathed easier.

 

“I’ve got you,” he said into her hair.

 

“I don’t know what came over me,” she whispered into the dry shirt he’d pulled on. “I nearly had a panic attack.”

 

“I’ve got you,” he said again, kissing her face and making all things okay in her world again, unable to remember what had upset her a moment ago.

 

 _He’s got me,_ she thought to herself as they found candles and matches, moving to create a room full of candlelight for themselves as the wind wound itself through the branches of the towering trees outside, the sheets of rain pounding the roof of Hawthorne House, the clouds high above Savannah descending as a canopy of nighttime at midday.

 

_He’s got me._

 

*************


	5. Harm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This? Is the most gothic, straight-up dramatically, fucked-up DTR talk I've ever written and I FUCKING love it. 
> 
> Next chapter will be a fluffy, fulfilling, filthy bang-a-thon.  
> Get your cigarettes ready.
> 
> @rileybabe, this moodboard SLAYS. 
> 
> xo  
> Berry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dedicated to Lilibeth Sonar whose comments blow my mind, humble me and make me a better writer all the dang time.  
> Love you, girl!
> 
> and to my husband who complained to me near the end of the chapter:  
> "Where's the hot water in the bath coming from? Nope. You just lost your audience. Put them in a bed."
> 
> *eye roll*  
> I changed it.

 

 

 

_Shadows gather and brood, under the trees._

_The world grows silent, it listens to hear us walking;_

_Let the star perish: we wander as we please._

_Or is the earth beneath us an old star falling,_

_Falling through twilight to leafy seas?_

 

_The night grows damp: I will take your arm._

_Follow the lanterns, lest we come to harm._

 

\- Conrad Aiken, The Charnel Rose: A Symphony

  
  
  
  
  


**********

  


The only electricity running in Hawthorne House now was whatever energy spun through Rey’s veins as she lounged in Ben’s arms on the floor of Hawthorne House as the hurricane drew closer and pressed in.

 

As far as she was concerned, she had need of none other, anyway.

This was the best case scenario of any natural disaster, any calamity, any emergency she could fathom anyhow, just herself and this bear of a man who held her on this floor, the stillness of the mansion around them like time itself held its breath to make space for their coupling, the rain outside a baptism of solitude.

The whole world’s eyes were averted and her heart hummed happily, fearless and placid as she listened to the storm outside as it fell.

 

“This is nice,” she said, her head resting on Ben’s chest while their bodies remained connected, her heat appeased with his seed suspended in her body, held aloft with his knot still deep inside her. “I think I love this,” she said with a girlish grin, looking up at the man who held her on the floor.

 

Maybe there were lots of beds in this house, maybe plenty of places they could have romanced one another’s bodies more appropriate than this blanket here, in this boarded-up, entombed floor of a mostly-vacant bed and breakfast, a space neither of them owned but surely in this moment each belonged but, there was no way either of them had sense to have made it that far when they got lost in one another.

 

With no other guests around, no friends, no bosses, no bosses’ _husbands,_ not even a cat to judge them, Rey and Ben had given over to their base need to fuck hard and fast and dirty right there on the floor, hands and knees and willingness and noise and it was exactly what she’d been missing her whole life, she realized as she lived it.

 

Ben sighed and ran a hand through her hair as he looked down at her beside him. “Yeah. Me, too.”

 

“We could stay here all night and I’d be a happy girl,” she said, snuggling into his chest with a delighted, sated smile.

 

“I think we’d hurt by morning,” Ben teased. “Unless you’re into that kind of thing.”

 

Rey smacked his chest gently and leaned back to see his eyes, crinkled and joking with her. “I’m into you,” she said, reburying her face in his neck.

 

He smelled so good here, his scent wafting towards her in waves of masculine spiciness, savory sweetness filling her heart and mind, making her gush around his knot inside her as he returned a pulse to her core. She could get lost in this smell, this heavenly fragrance all his own, this thing she must have certainly been born to chase, to possess, to receive. There were other men she’d liked, she’d fucked, even one or two she’d had a kind of love for but, this - Ben - was a stunningly, singular experience and there was no doubt about it.

 

She licked his throat and rubbed her scent gland on his, kissing him over and over, claiming him as mate, as lover, as Other as certainly as she could and pulling back she was sure she’d see reciprocation in his eyes, hunger, confirmation.

 

“Do me,” she urged. “Scent me, touch me, lick me. I want you to. I want to be yours. I’m ready. Please, Ben. Alpha. _Please._ ”

He had promised to withhold nothing and certainly he hadn’t, there was no doubt now he wanted her as she wanted him and though she felt a twinge of concern at having to ask him for verbal and physical reassurances, she was sure - she was _so_ sure - he was about to claim and mark and announce to her she was his and his alone, making an elaborate show of his alpha ownership of her heart, her love, her body.

 

Ben’s brow furrowed as he caressed her cheek and he said nothing.

 

Rey sat up slightly, bringing an arm to cover her tender breasts, watching his face turn from her and towards the ceiling as he lay on his back on the floor, candlelight flickering over his features, light dancing on his bare skin.

 

“Ben,” she said, looking at him imploringly. “ _Ben_.”

 

“Rey, I…” he began, and swallowed, turning away further, his body moving out from under hers as his knot slipped free of her body.

 

“What?” she asked, watching him sit up and wrap arms around his knees, curled over himself as he faced the wall across from himself. “What is it?” she asked.

 

“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t have you. I can’t keep you.”

 

Rey’s head swam with dizziness. “What?! _Why?_ Why not? Why, Ben, what are you saying?”

 

“I just…I can’t keep you. You’re not for me. I know you’re not.”

 

“What are you saying right now?” Rey said loudly, rising to her knees, her hands resting on his shoulders as she pushed panic down hard. “Why are you saying this? Haven’t you been here? Haven’t you been living what I have the last 24 hours?”

 

Ben turned hard away from her as he stood from the ground, grabbing his pants as he rose and stuffing himself into them with a huff, pushing his hair off his forehead aggressively as he moved way from her where she sat on the ground, pulling the blanket they’d laid on around her nakedness.

 

 _“Ben!”_ she shouted, seeking his attention, his response, even his rage, _anything._ “What is going on?! Answer me! I gave you my body, I’d give you my heart, my soul, my _anything._ Why are you saying this to me right now?”

 

“Because I have to!” he bellowed, turning on his heel to shout right back at her, hands forming fists at his sides, the light casting shadows across his face. “Because I have no choice and I know it to be true! I cannot keep you, I cannot keep your heart, I will see you through this heat and that is all!”

 

“What?” Rey pleaded, shocked that he would suggest it was merely a heat that had drawn them together, weaved them seamlessly into one, created the bond she clearly felt. “You think this is just about a fucking _heat?_ That’s all this _is_ for you?” she demanded.

 

Ben shook his head as the rain pounded hard outside, the moaning wind catching Rey’s ear as she stood heaving, naked, angry and indignant in front of Ben, his head drooping, his hand lifting to pinch the bridge of his nose and run through his hair before he took a deep breath and responded.

 

“I am not a good man, Rey,” he said, each word secured with a clipped edge, stapling the words together firmly. “I am too broken. I have too many smashed pieces. I am not good.”

 

She met his eyes, pools of jet black depths and she walked towards him, reaching to hold his cheek in her palm, a train of blanket trailing her as she walked toward him slowly, resolutely, an offer of foreshadowing if he would but see it for what it was.

 

“If you are broken, we just fix it all together,” she said. “I am not afraid of you, Ben, I’m not afraid to fix things. I know how to fix things, I’m good at it. Or, I’ll wait. I know how to wait,” she told him with certainty. “Ben, I can wait,” she repeated as he turned away.

 

“I’d never ask that of you, sweet girl. You’re too good for me. Too beautiful. Too good and too light,” he said as he shook his head up at the ceiling and the hurricane overhead beyond it. “All the time I looked for you and _now_ I find you. After it’s all too late. _Now_ you’re here,” he murmured to himself, shaking his head sadly as he turned to face her, out of arm’s reach.

 

“Ben, _stop saying that, please_ ,” she begged as she moved towards him, her heart ripping in half as he moved out of her reach, shielding himself from her, leaving the candlelit room to seek out the inky darkness of the shrouded room beyond, stagnant and black as night, the howling of the storm around them whipping through the wood on the windows, threatening to find them.

 

“Whatever it is, whatever needs to be done, I’ll go with you,” she offered, desperate, dragging the weight of the blanket behind her, jealous to be free of it and back in his arms where she belonged, ready to end this and be joined with him in anyway he would accept. “Please Ben, just _listen_ …”

 

“You don’t know me,” he insisted. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you did.”

 

“I would,” she pleaded, her voice competing with the noise of the storm as it raged. “I would! I _do_ know you. I _want_ to know you if you’ll just let me, _please, Ben_ …”

 

“I’m a murderer, Rey,” he said concisely.

 

The rain was unaffected as it pounded the house around them and Rey’s heart seized.

 

“I’m a killer, sweet girl. A killer,” he said, turning to see her stunned face in the dark room, his face nearly unfindable in the darkened space.

 

When her breathing restarted she was unaware of it, her fists clenched tightly as she gripped the blanket around her, drawing it more tightly. Her wide eyes drank him in, his face obscured in the pitch-black evening, almost obliterated completely in the dark when he turned his back to her, his dark hair blending immediately into the unlit room.

 

She may have stammered.

She may have uttered words.

She barely heard herself now, as she processed what he’d confessed, the words rumbling through her brain like a freight train of agony.

 

Killer.

Killer.

Murderer.

Killer.

 

Rey moved backward from him until she stumbled on the blanket she covered herself with, too hurt to accept his hand when he reached to right her as she kept herself from falling, and when she gulped candlelight with her eyes and air into her lungs, thrashing violently to dress herself, her springy sundress a mocking insult to the dreadful reality she was plunged into, she found herself moving towards the back door almost unconsciously, seeking oxygen, space, room, as if she, too would perish in his presence if trapped one more minute in the house.

 

The slam of the back kitchen door behind her, Rey felt the cobblestone ground under her feet a split second before she felt the rain soak her through, scalp to shoulder and as she punished the ground under her with slamming feet, her sobs were hid and were mixed with the hurricane-force rain that pummeled her, an immersion of physical misery nearly enough to compete with the suffering of her heart.

 

 _He was right,_ she thought as she ran, heedless of her barefoot race through the city streets of a rain-swept Savannah evening.

 _Poe was right, I didn’t know him,_ she thought as she wailed, her feet carrying her carelessly through the abandoned town.

 

 _I gave myself to him,_ she realized, _a murderer. A killer. I gave myself to him. He had me._

 

She ran as she cried, for herself, for him, for what almost was, and her broken heart unable to power her further as her muddied legs threatened to give out and her dress weighed her down in its saturated state, her shoulders slumping as she sobbed, she flung herself onto the bench she found beside her, head buried and arms coming to cover her head, the stone under her face cool and solid, as different from the sweetly muscled chest she had rested on the last day and night, a polar opposite of natures.

 

Finally, she lifted her face as her tears faded and her breath returned, the wind ripping through the trees around her, a threat to look up, to give credence to its taunts and her eyes fell on the tombstone at her eye level as she rose.

 

A tombstone.

A graveyard.

 

She had come, unbeknownst to fall here in this cemetery of humanity when her heart in her chest had withered and died.

 

Cold climbed her spine as the stone bench she had baptized with her tears sent shivers through her damp dress, her skin raising with a chill and fear as she looked at the tombstones surrounding her.

 

Blind, green angels, their sad, veiled faces keeping eternal watch and limestone crypts of skeletal remains encompassed her, a black, pitched gate at the far end of the grounds caging her with the remains of people long buried under her.

The dead bodies of soldiers and their families lay beneath and around her, all of Savannah’s dead listening to her weeping as the storm raged around and through her.

 

Panic crawled through her cells, ensconcing each fiber of her being with terror and against her will she began to shake with furious tremors, the cold and fear wrecking havoc on her wet body, her inability to move an inch damning her to meet her demise as the storm saw fit, unable to fight it off alone.

 

“Rey!” Ben shouted to her, drenched and solid, a force of stability in the pouring rain, immovable even as the wind beat at him, beautiful even in his admission and his darkness.

 

She shook hard where she sat in the rain, the bench beneath her unmoved by her dread and incompetence, and she lifted her arms as he scooped her up, leaving death behind them as he pulled her into his chest, carrying her as she hid her face, her tears returning when he lifted her, his steady pace and familiar scent comforting her against her will, returning her to what she knew - to him, to his arms, to his heart, to his bed.

 

The rain drowned her fear as he carried her to Hawthorne House, a christening of forgiveness over them both.

 

If he was a killer, she was his accomplice.

If he was a murderer, she was his alibi.

 

If she was to die, it would be here in his arms.

 

There was nothing for her after this, after him, after all.

 

This was where she belonged, what she needed and she absolved him as he carried her over the threshold, promising herself to receive him absolutely if he would give himself to her.

 

By the time he entered the house and carried her upstairs, pulling back blankets for her to climb inside to recover while she shucked her wet clothes and she moved towards him pleadingly to remove his, as well, watching his face as she pulled off his soaked clothes with shaking hands, a puddle beneath their matching sets of drowned belongings on the floor together, she pulled him into the bed with her, curling against his soft chest, wrapping her arms around him, sending her love to him, notwithstanding his confession.

 

“I see you,” she told him as she closed her eyes and felt their bodies tangle to warm one another. “Ben, I am not afraid to be with you. I’m sorry I ran away from you. Will you…will you forgive me that?”

 

She met his eyes and saw what could have been rain but, she realized they were more likely tears and she hugged him tighter to herself as he spoke.

 

“You’re not the one who needs redemption, my sweet girl. I am,” he corrected her.

Her eyes filled with tears at his heartbreaking vulnerability, the depths of his sorrow shared with her breaking her heart as she looked at him.  

 

“I would die before I would harm you, I swear it,” he promised, his hands on her an oath, a dire pledge. “I’m a broken man, Rey, but I am yours.”

 

“There is nothing broken that can’t be restored,” she said, her heart beating again for the first time since he told her who he was, what he’d done, her mind fitting the pieces of her work, her education together as if in this moment every, single tool she’d ever used, every lesson she’d ever learned was for this purpose, this task, this man.

 

“You’re mine now, Ben Solo,” she said as she studied his open face, “and I want all your broken pieces.”

 

************


	6. Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know what to say anymore.  
> Two chapters in one day?  
> @rileybabe and I are *NOT*, I repeat *NOT* meth addicts. We just work like them. 
> 
> I write the words. She grabs the art. TA-DA.  
> Teamwork makes the (nutso) dream work.
> 
> We're certifiable. 
> 
> *drinks coffee*  
> *goes to write The North Shore...belatedly*
> 
> MIND THE TAGS AS YOU READ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dedicated to all the readers and commenters whose full time job it's become to read this trash in the last 4 days while I type like some sort of crazed rabbit. 
> 
> and my husband who hasn't read this yet but when he does will raise his eyebrows at me as if to say: "Woah. That's a lot of smut ya got there, woman."

 

 

_“Her nakedness he seemed to see._

_And breast to breast, and knee to knee,_

_Tremulous, breathless, swaying, burning,_

_Body to beautiful body yearning,_

_In joy and terror, flesh to flesh,_

 

_They flamed in passion's fine red mesh.”_

 

\- Conrad Aiken, The Dance of Life

  
  
  
  


***********

  


“Tell me what happened.”

 

It needed to be asked.

It needed to be answered.

 

Rey had to pursue this truth and he had to be willing to share it with her, even if it broke something inside her it would release him from a prison of his own making and therefore it must be done. She didn’t love this moment, didn’t relish this experience of questioning him but as she looked at Ben beside her in bed, she knew she’d never be able to show him how she wanted him fully, truly unless he let her into his truth.

 

“My father,” he said with a deep and heavy exhale. “I killed my father.”

 

The words rained around them fatefully, as potent as the hurricane howling past the sturdy house outside the windows in the bedroom they found themselves huddled together inside and the darkness of evening fell as gently as leaves torn from branches outside.

Rey rubbed his hands in hers as she faced him in his bed, their legs twisting together as a way to work through the words actively, trying to survive the terrible thing Ben had just said.

 

“Say more words,” she suggested, listening intently, “tell me more.”

She wanted to know, to understand and make sense of this.

 

If he was a vicious killer, how was he free?

If he was a murderer, had he gone to prison?

 

If he left now, could she take it?

 

Was he hers?

 

“I was hired by a high-powered investment broker, right out of college. He was successful - _stupid_ rich and very…let’s say, very _compelling_ when he wanted to be,” Ben explained, pulling her against himself and talking into her hair.

Rey settled into his arms and breathed him in, letting herself be cradled in his arms, serenaded by his scent, his voice, letting the dark night fall as it pleased, letting it happen, using up her reserves of patience and courage to welcome whatever Ben was about to share.

 

“I was ambitious. Reckless. I allowed myself to be deluded, coerced. I made poor choices and I was guilty of watching people get robbed blind. If they were dumb enough to buy into the lies he fed them, they deserved to pay the consequences - that’s what Snoke said. Darwinian thinking - survival of the fittest, that kind of thing,” he went on.

 

“He gave me an alias, made it harder for the cops to find me, find us all. When the Feds caught up and arrested him, I turned state’s evidence and testified against him. In the end, I didn’t do any time. He’s behind bars and I live with the fact I was a terrible liar to a lot of people who got hurt while I stood by and watched. Lost all their money in a Ponzi scheme.”

 

Rey pulled away to face Ben, her head on a pillow as well.

“But, what does this have to do with you father, then?”

 

Ben sighed deeply and gave a mirthless laugh.

“My father. My father was on my case my whole life. And when he learned who I was working for and what was happening, he rode me hard about it. Lectured me, yelled at me…said a lot of things I’ll never forget. True things. We were fighting that night. The night he died. We were together, fighting. In the car. We were yelling, screaming. I blamed him for being a shitty father. He blamed me for fucking up my life. I lost control of the car and the next thing I knew…I was waking up after surgery in a recovery room. My father was dead.”

 

“Ben,” Rey whispered.

 

He rolled to his back and turned to face the ceiling, a familiar gesture Rey could identify him resorting to, and she determined not to be blocked.

She moved above him to straddle his waist, pulling his hands to her hips as she sat astride him.

 

“Ben Solo, you listen to me,” she said, “you did not kill your father.”

 

She gazed hard at him, willing him to listen, willing him to hear her, and she repeated her words slowly until he looked into her eyes and she watched as something in him unlocked.

 

“You. Did. Not. Kill. Your. Father.”

 

A moment ticked by, the rain thundering outside booming an affirmation of her words, a punctuation of agreement.

 

“Do you hear me?” she asked, searching his face, waiting for him to respond but he only listened, his chest barely falling and rising with quiet breaths.

 

“You didn’t, my love. My heart. Ben, you _didn’t,_ ” she brought her face to his and kissed him deeply, pressing her assurances into his mouth with her own. “No matter what happened that night in the car, no matter what you said or what your father said, you couldn’t have known he would die. It was an accident. You didn’t kill him. You didn’t. And even if you had, my alpha, my man, my own…I would want you still.”

 

“You don’t mean that,” he argued, unwilling to accept her words, shaking his head.

 

“Don’t I?” she countered. “I scented you. I marked you. I have mated myself to you and given you my body and offered all that I am. And I am still here. Still offering myself to you. Can you say the same?” she challenged, realizing as the words left her mouth how utterly naked she was, how defenseless, how unguarded she had made herself.

 

He hadn’t, after all, made good on a promise to give her everything.

He hadn’t, after all, offered to mate her.

 

“Rey, I never thought I would find you,” he said, looking up at her where she sat at his middle, “I never thought you were out there. I just assumed whatever good woman was meant for me, I’d blown it. I’m too broken. I’d fallen too far. I am too damaged…and now to have to tell you this, I…I can’t believe you’d still want me.”

 

“Have I been unclear? Because I feel like I have been pretty clear,” she said with a slight smile. _“I want you,”_ she emphasized carefully.

 

“I want…god, _fuck,_ I want you so much, Rey. I don’t deserve to have you. You’re too beautiful. Too perfect. I _do_ want you, sweet girl, of course I do. More than I’ve ever wanted anything,” he told her, depositing her onto her back and kissing her over and over, her face peppered with kisses as he repeated his desire for her.

 

“You’re just much, much too good for me,” he assured her as he kissed her and climbed between her legs, Rey’s arms coming to tangle in his hair and wrap around him tightly.

 

“I want you for my own,” he said, his mouth a shower of kisses on her face, her mouth, her shoulders, her throat. “I want you in my bed. I want you in my life. In my home. I want you to carry my child. I want to fuck you full of my cum till it spills out of you. I want never to leave you again. I want you. All of you. I want to take you wholly and make you only mine,” he assured her, his dark hair falling in his eyes as they darkened with intensity.

 

“Yes, alpha,” she moaned, a fulfillment of wishes coming true in this bed, in his arms as he spoke, every word ones she’d waited to hear. “Yes, god, _yes. Please._ Ben, _please.”_

 

He moved to align his cock with her, and the storm outside barreled through, a cacophony of motion and disaster as Rey’s world zeroed in on just one place, one moment, one man in her arms.

 

“Will you have me then?” he asked, studying her face in the newly fallen dark, low rumbles of thunder in the distance, his body entering hers, every entreaty pressed into her person with a thrust of strength, “will you belong to me, sweet omega? Let me take you and fill you? Will you take my knot and spread your legs for your alpha? Will you let me take what I want?”

 

“I will,” she swore, welcoming his kiss as her pumped inside of her, his voice melting her happily,” give me your cum, alpha,” she whispered, “knot me. Give me your child. Use me up and come inside me. I want to feel you come in me. Please, Ben, _please._ I need you.”

 

“You take my cock so well, my good girl,” he told her assuringly, his hands grazing her skin, his tongue lapping at her breast as he fucked her hard. “Come let me hold you,” he said, standing to hold her up in his arms, moving against a wall to fuck her while he stood and pushed himself up into her, Rey’s arms and legs tied around him as tightly as possible, the cool wall against her back holding her buoyant.

 

“Tell me you’re mine,” he demanded through gritted teeth. “Tell me you belong to me. Tell me whose cock you take. Whose pussy this is. Tell me, sweet girl. Tell your alpha who you were made for,” he insisted as he thrust into her, his hand reaching to pull her hair by the roots behind her, a shock of pleasure shooting through her as he tugged in time with his thrust inside her.

 

“You, you,” she whimpered, “only _you,_ alpha. _Ben.You.”_

 

 _“Mine,”_ he growled, licking and sucking a mark over her gland. “No matter who wants to know now, you tell them it’s _done_ . We are one. You are _mine._ No paper on earth, no fucking _ceremony_ means more than this moment right now, than my cock fucking this promise into you. Do you hear me? Your alpha? I’ve made it so and it’s _finished._ You’re _mine_ now, Rey, my beautiful mate, my queen, my omega, I’ll never let you go, it’s _done,_ ” he promised.

 

Rey kissed him, gasping in return and moaning in release as they each climaxed, one after the other, his seed satisfying all her longings, the promise of his heart and body and child enough to make her come, the beauty of his body and face and soul holding her captive as she stared at him as he satisfied himself into her with a groan.

 

 _“Mine,”_ she repeated to him, drunk on it as he repeated it in return, over and back as the sky crashed around them endlessly, a holy vow.

 

“Ben, swear you won’t leave me,” she gasped, catching her breath as he held her aloft, slowing kissing her deeply where he held her up in his arms, still inside her body, both of them safe and hidden from the blustering, angry storm outside, nearly blinded in the dusky, stormy night. “Swear it, swear it,” she begged, suddenly anxious of losing him, desperate to confirm outside of a passionate embrace, the throes of desperation he would still want her, still claim her.

 

“Nothing could take you from me now,” he assured her with a smile, a kiss to her forehead and a hand to her cheek, smoothing her skin under his fingertips. “Nothing, Rey. I’ll never let anything take you from me,” he told her, kissing her again. “Nothing. I am _yours,_ sweet girl.”

 

He moved them gently to the bed, laying them to spend time touching and kissing while his seed took root, her warm body heated to receive his cum, and Rey wished hard while she lay in his arms she could give him a baby, she could wish it into existence, she could will it be happen.

 

She traced his dark eyebrows and his regal nose, his full lips and his precious ears, his black wavy hair, his tender Adam’s apple.

 

“I’m yours, Ben. I’m yours and you are mine,” as she pulled him in deeper, the heights of heaven in his eyes, all she’d looked for, all she’d waited for, all she’d imagined all her life come to earth with the storm, brought raining down around her from unknown shores, a cascade of wishes come true at her own front door.

 

**********

 

The deep hush of night carried no threat when Rey woke before the sun rose.

 

Beside her, the man she had given herself to was asleep, his face a serene picture of perfect grace and goodness, the most beautiful she’d ever seen and in the straining glimmer of dawn she struggled to burrow even closer to him.

 

She tuned her ears to the world beyond Hawthorne House and found complete and utter stillness: no birds chirping a happy morning tune, but, no storm bellowing complaints of wind and rain, either.

The storm had moved on, the worst of it passed and even though the flora and fauna would take time to recuperate, the promise of new life was just around the bend, all things dead washed away with the cleansing storm and burgeoning creation about to take root in the world all around them.

 

Rey smiled in the dim bedroom as Ben stirred beside her and she blinked twice, looking around to realize it was cooler in the room, fresher somehow. The power was restored, the air conditioning pumping away their stale traumas, sweeping a brisk chill around them as Rey pulled the covers over her shoulders and smiled over at Ben as he woke.

 

She leaned close to rub her nose along his and kissed his puffy lips, reveling in the fact he was hers, _hers,_ and she could do so.

This powerful, strong alpha of a man was _hers._

 

“Power’s back,” she murmured, and crawled into his arms when he opened them to her and said “come here,” suddenly no more pressing need than to be held by him.

 

“Are you alright to find some coffee before I fuck you?” he asked, his intentions clear as he grew hard against her thigh already.

 

“Hmm,” she hummed, searching her body mentally for signs of raging need and finding only a spark of memory, a tiny blip of pain. “Yes, I can wait just a bit,” she said.

 

“Come on, beautiful girl,” he said, smiling and standing to put pants on, “your alpha needs to feed you and then fuck you.”

 

Rey smiled at him as they made their way down the stairs, illuminated by the wall lights they’d had no need to turn off last night, and she thought about the last time she’d been downstairs.

How they’d argued, and she’d trailed behind Ben through the house, her heart throbbing painfully as she thought he was resisting her, then rejecting her, and then shocking her, how for a moment she’d heard him and fled and she was overcome with shame, then relief and finally unfiltered love.

 

This could have all gone so differently.

 

She climbed into his lap in the cushioned seat of the chaise lounge, a cup of coffee in each of their hands and she leaned against his broad chest as she let herself enjoy his presence protecting her, providing what she needed, securing her even through a tempest inside her body and outside the house.

 

“Ben, I love you,” she said bravely, simply, honestly.

 

She looked at him, moving a wave of hair behind his ear, kissing his brow and never leaving his eyes. “I do. I know it’s fast. I don’t care. I know it’s true. I love you.”

 

A look nearing pain flashed in his eyes as he listened and he reached to kiss her. “I’ll never deserve you, my sweet girl.”

 

“Ben, I’m yours,” she said, reading his heart well, knowing how undeserving he felt.

 

“I love you,” he responded. “All that I have to give you, Rey. It’s yours.”

 

Suddenly, the coffee and his words worked in tandem to overwhelm her with a heated intensity sweeping through her stunningly quickly, and Rey bit her lip as she took both their mugs and placed them on the nearby table, dropping her clothes as she stood naked in front of him and looked at him hungrily.

 

“Take me to bed, alpha,” she told him. “I need you again.”

  


********

 

“Give me your baby,” she said, as she licked into his ear, her whispers cooled with her tongue as he shivered beneath her. “That’s what I want. Come inside me, alpha, make me feel good. Show me I am yours.”

 

She’d been able to crawl all over him for only a moment before Ben flung her to the bed in a powerful show of force, tearing clothes off himself and pulling Rey’s body to him for ravishing, her head lolled against the pillows behind her as her grabbed her middle up to meet his mouth as he sat before her on his knees, his cock leaning for her, dripping already and she wrapped her fingers around him and groaned as she rubbed the moisture along him.

 

“Is that what you want from me?” he growled into her belly, “you want me to fuck you so hard I fill you up with my cum? Is that it, pretty omega? My perfect, sweet girl?”

 

Flipping her onto her knees and pulling a pillow under her chest he drew her hips back and eased himself in, taking his time filling her, excruciatingly slowly.

 

“Such a sweet little cunt, my good girl,” he told her as he pumped inside of her, his hands sliding over her ass and back as he spread her hips wide and filled her full of his cock.

 

Rey was reduced to moaning, to feeling, to receiving and when his hands reached around her, caressing her breasts and he threw his body inside her, his other hands tangling in her hair to pull her head up, the sensation shooting a sweet thrill of goodness through her with a loud moan, she called his name as she pictured his cum filling her, the image sending her into mad spasms of completion, Ben groaning as he finished a moment behind her, thrusting deeper than she’d ever felt him before.

 

“Fuck,” he breathed as he curled around her on the bed, his knot secure in her body and sleep creeping back in, the early morning demanding more rest of them before the day properly began.

 

“I will never, ever get tired of fucking you,” he said as he collapsed on the bed beside Rey, curling around her body easily. “I swear to god, you were made to take my cock, beautiful girl.”

 

Rey smiled to herself as she felt sleepiness creep in.

 

“Sleep,” he instructed, “I’ll be right here when you wake.”

 

*********

 

This time when she woke, the sun was streaming bravely through the windows, the pale blue sky proudly proclaiming the morning had broken and the sky wasn’t shattered after all, still present and whole and surviving, the storm a memory now and the sounds of the outside world assailing her ears as Rey leaned up in bed and peeked outside.

 

Chainsaws and the beep of reverse lights signaled the start of rebuilding efforts, tree trimmers and limb-collectors on the sidewalk below already, birds and squirrels flitting around looking for a new place to build a nest, burrow down deep, greet the new day with their families.

 

Rey stretched and listened to the shower run, knowing it could only be Ben and she smiled, feeling the warmth still present on his side of the bed, aware he hadn’t been gone from his side for long.

It was about as long as she was willing to be separated from him at all, heat or not.

 

The phone beside his side of the bed illuminated and Rey reached over to see it, grabbing it up and carrying it to the bathroom while it buzzed and signaled impatiently in her hand.

 

“Ben?” she called through the bathroom door, cracked on slightly, “your phone, it’s ringing.”

 

“Mind answering?” he asked, “I’ll be right out, sweet girl.”

 

Rey pressed the green button quickly to keep from missing the call and in a moment she was speaking to Leia, Ben’s mother. She’d heard only a little about her from Ben, about her commanding, loving personality, her stubborn streak, her legendary kugel and potato latkes, and Rey immediately warmed to her voice.

 

“I just wanted to make sure you all have power down there at the inn where my son is staying,” Leia said. “I’ve been watching the Weather Channel from up here in Chicago and it just looked so foreboding. Did it get pretty bad for you all?”

 

“Oh,” Rey smiled to herself, knowing what a momentous experience it was for her, personally, “we got through it.”

 

“Oh well, I am so grateful my dear. You know, I don’t mind telling you I have been so worried about Ben. What with the accident and all, he really has just had the hardest time recovering,” Leia went on.

 

“Well, he’s done really beautifully here, I assure you, Mrs. Solo. He’s been an _extraordinary_ guest,” Rey smirked secretly, making a joke with herself.

 

“Oh, I’m so relieved to hear that,” Leia went on. “Some people are really put off by how he looks you know, and it can be a real trigger for him,” she said.

 

“Yes, well, he is one big guy,” Rey said with a smirk, “he could look quite intimidating, I’d imagine,” she affirmed, knowing what a kitten her lion turned into in her hands, how docile her alpha became around her.

 

“Well, he was always a big boy,” Leia agreed, making Rey picture birthing a large baby causing her to wince slightly, “but you know, I’m talking about the scar.”

 

Rey drew a blank.

 

“Scar?”

 

“Yes my dear, you know, we can speak about it, the doctors say it’s alright, it’s not his fault of course what happened. It was an accident after all and it’s all part of the healing process,” Rey listened intently as Leia went on.

“When the doctors told me about his scar after surgery, before he woke up, they tried to warn me but really, it’s such a significant scar, from way above his eyebrow all the way down the side of his face to his shoulder, well…I just really couldn’t have been prepared for how it would bisect his face so plainly, and look so painful, so jagged and noticeable. I don’t know what I was expecting but, it was a shock I assure you so I don’t ever blame people for staring.”

 

Rey felt her stomach drop, a ride on a carnival Tilt-o-Whirl taking place without her permission in her gut, and she stared sightless at the wall opposite her, struggling to speak, her mouth dropped open.

 

 _Scar._ _What scar?_ she screamed mentally, her mind providing her only with images of her handsome alpha, her Ben, her mate, her love, the man of her dreams who she had glimpsed only hours before in the half-light and for so many unlimited hours before.

 

“I was very happy he was going to get some good recovery time there at Amilyn’s. It’s just such bad luck he had to show up right in the middle of a terrible hurricane. Such a shame!” Leia concluded, tutting her tongue.

 

Rey shook her head back into reality and assumed her semi-professional role, knowing Leia didn’t know who she was.

 

“Well, we took good care of him here, don’t worry, Mrs. Solo,” she said as she cringed internally, knowing his mother had no idea what she meant was more sexual in nature than she could have ever dreamed.

 

“I appreciate it so much, my dear, thank you. And just tell my son to call me, would you, please?”

 

“Yes, I sure will,” Rey said on auto-pilot. “Bye.”

 

Rey ended the call once Leia had done so and she knocked on the door lightly.

Steel wrapped around her heart as she waited for Ben to answer.

 

 **_Was_ ** he scarred?

Had she missed it…somehow?

All these hours, all the intimacy, all the confusion and drama, was she…was she _blinded?_

 

Ben opened the door, a cloud of steam rising behind him, enveloping him like an angelic being as he drifted towards her, a brilliant smile gracing his handsome face - the same face Rey had worshipped the last two days - perfection personified, beautiful, flawless, _hers,_ and as he scooped her off the floor and kissed her soundly, his damp hair swinging around his collar to sprinkle her with moisture, she giggled, his scent filing her nose sharply as he kissed and sucked at her neck, one arm holding her up.

 

“You make me so happy,” he told her, depositing her on the floor again, Rey’s eyes glued to him, surveying his face slowly, wondering whether she was missing something, whether she was going mad, whether Ben’s mother was a crazy person, what in the hell was going on.

 

“Let’s go downstairs, sweet girl,” he beamed at her, all fresh man and sweet smelling prince of him. “I’m ready, are you?”

 

Rey looked up at his gorgeous face, the dearest in all the world to her and just nodded.

 

She was anything but ready.

 

************


	7. Heal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a ridiculously romantic, vintage movie called "The Enchanted Cottage" with Robert Young and Dorothy Maguire.  
> It helped inspire this work and I kept that to myself til *RIGHT* now so you guys wouldn't know what the fuck was going on. 
> 
> I highly recommend that tactic, it was fun as hell. 
> 
> I especially enjoyed Ameris guessing Rey was mated to an axe murderer and somehow pregnant with Ben's twin/"murder baby". 
> 
> If you wanna fall in love, find & watch this movie here...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enchanted_Cottage_(1945_film)  
> Good job commenter "Mum" who guessed it. 
> 
> Art, as always by my darling sister, @rileybabe and beta by my precious sister @uselessenglishmajor
> 
>  
> 
> LAST chapter tomorrow!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for sweetnlow who shares my real first name IRL and basically all my same kinks.  
> *cheers*, E! xoxo
> 
> and for my husband who said: "Is there some sort of chart for this a/b/o biology? It's fucking weird." 
> 
> Sigh, boys. 
> 
> xo  
> Berry

 

  

_“But rapid as the sun she seemed,_

_A blinding light that flowed and streamed_

_And sang and shone through roaring space...._

 

_The sun itself! for now her face,_

_Wherein this music's whole soul dwelt,_

_Drew him like helpless star”_

 

\- Conrad Aiken, The Dance of Life

 

*************

 

If she hadn’t been holding Ben’s hand as she descended the staircase, it’s likely she would have fallen.

 

Rey could barely pry her eyes from his face, his freshly-scrubbed visage free of the gloominess he’d carried like a mask two days prior gone, his efforts to hide and restrain his natural ease dropped like so much unnecessary baggage, his skin smooth and hair damp, he smiled at the world around himself generously as Rey scanned every inch of him for clues.

 

 _What scar?_ reverberated in her mind like a tuning fork struck hard, the echoes of Leia’s words running through her thoughts, stubborn fish jumping out of the water, against the current throughout her stream of consciousness, slippery, contrary, elusive, refusing to be caught and pinned down and exposed.

 

Darkness slid up around them as their feet made synchronized work of the steps, the boarded up windows still shading the first floor of Hawthorne House in shadow, the house caged in permanent night until the wood was lifted from the windows outside.

 

Hearing voices in the kitchen beyond them, Rey pulled Ben’s hand towards herself, a request for attention, reluctant to face the music, break the seal, burst the bubble and she stood on the first step and drew him to herself, his hands coming to rest at her lower back as she stood a bit higher opposite him than she was already accustomed to.

 

“Hey,” she said, threading his damp hair between her fingers, surveying his beautiful face up close, marveling at how fine his features were, how ideally he was built for her, how amazed she was he claimed her as she had him, a wave of adoration breaking over her as he tightened his arms around her and focused his dark eyes on hers. “Wait - Ben - I just want one more, tiny minute alone with you,” she said.

 

She smiled at him, her brain nearing the heights of confusion as her heart felt suffused with the deepest of peace, of love, of belonging.

This made no sense, she was not sure what she was missing but, she loved his man, she was all his, of that at least she was sure.

 

“How long do I have to share you with whomever is here today before I drag you back to my bed?” he asked gruffly as he kissed her neck, lost in her hair, his deep voice touching her soul, waking her heat, wetting her panties.

 

“However long it is, it’ll be too much,” she said, eyes closed, lost to his touch she had grown to value immeasurably.

 

“Let’s get it over with then,” he said, kissing her lips and pulling her to the kitchen.

 

Light streamed into the white and blue kitchen gloriously, scattered through windows already freed of their wooden prisons, Poe and Amilyn already working in tandem on a ladder outside, a hardworking and careful team, devoted to remedying all the ills the hurricane had deposited on the property in the hours the storm had blown through Savannah.

 

Beams cut through in shafts, patches of darkness fleeing with every removed board and as they moved in harmony through the room to make breakfast and coffee, moving around Chirrut and Maz, greeting one another as mutual hurricane survivors, Rey stole glances at Ben’s face with every additional increase of sunshine into the room.

 

 _What scar?_ she demanded, peering hard, manually focusing her eyes intently, willing herself to picture what Leia had described unknowingly to her on the phone, replaying her words repeatedly for herself, searching attentively to discover what she had heard detailed, unable to see even a little bit what she had heard his mother outline.

 

 _“_ _A significant scar…above his eyebrow all the way down the side of his face to his shoulder… it would bisect his face so plainly, and look so painful, so jagged and noticeable…I don’t ever blame people for staring,”_ Leia had said.

 

 _“_ _I know he was hurt badly in an accident recently and is still recuperating,”_ Amilyn had said.

 

 _“This guy has not one but two names, very little backstory and one pretty stoic demeanor. Not to mention his face,”_ Poe had said.

 

Rey sipped her coffee as she moved to a chair at the kitchen table, stepping over the remnants of her latest collection of sandpapered and stripped, wooden desk legs, a restoration project patiently undertaken weeks ago she relished working on which had taken a backseat over the last days’ events as things often do when love sweeps into one’s world.

 

She gazed at the beautiful man who sat beside her - as familiar as her heartbeat, as foreign as a stranger - and she argued with herself about what was reality and what was fiction.

 

Her thoughts twisted around themselves, a kaleidoscope of memories of the last days’ words between them as the sun poured through the windows, late summer dusting the rain from the house, brushing the clouds away handily.

 

 _“I am what you see,”_ he had said, his eyes falling to the floor, _“I am only what you see, Rey.”_

 

 _“Good,”_ she had said, _“I like what I see.”_

 

 _“Is that right?”_ he had asked, _“you like what you see, sweet girl?”_

 

 

 _“You’re so beautiful,”_ she had said.

 

 _“Truly?”_ he had asked, his brow furrowed. _“You’re saying that truly?”_

 

 _“Ben,”_ she had insisted, _“truly. Maybe the most beautiful person I’ve ever known.”_

 

 

It was the truth.

It was the truest thing she had ever said and though she couldn’t explain it - couldn’t see what clearly others around her had seen - neither could she deny it.

 

To her, he was flawless.

 

Whatever others saw, whatever they described and beheld, it was lost to her completely.

 

“I’ll go lend a hand, I believe,” Ben said, planting a kiss on Rey’s head as he stood to leave the table, heading for the backdoor, leaving Rey with only her smile to accompany him.

 

She touched his hand as it glided by her and remembered again why she loved him.

His soul was as beautiful as his person to her eyes.

 

Rey’s eyes followed him to the back kitchen door where he stepped through authoritatively, his broad shoulders and capable frame lighting Rey’s core with desire, just his walk, his gait, his swagger and scent enough to driver her to distraction.

 

When her eyes fell back to her coffee, she remembered Chirrut sat nearby and she collected her thoughts to engage her forgotten friend, Maz interrupting and making Rey aware she had been watching her while she stared after Ben as he’d walked, clearly indicated by the look on her face, the way she wiped her hands on the kitchen towel in her hands, the smirk settled over her mouth.

 

Maz approached the table and took a seat, and Rey nervously sipped her coffee.

 

“So,” Maz said teasingly. “Enjoyed the hurricane, did we?”

 

Rey blushed furiously, aware she had fornicated all over the bed and breakfast where she was employed while everyone else was gone, suddenly panicked there must be evidence everywhere, perhaps even in the guilty look on her face.

 

“Um…” Rey searched for an answer and paused to sip her coffee again, interrupting herself to stall and Maz cackled when the moment lingered without answer a moment too long to be considered accidental, Chirrut bursting into gales of laughter alongside her as he listened to the obvious answer written between the unuttered lines of Rey’s non-response.

 

“Well, that’s _one_ way to throw a hurricane party,” Maz shrieked with delight as she smacked Chirrut on the forearm beside her.

 

Chirrut howled with polite laughter and Rey chuckled along after a minute, too found out to pretend any longer.

 

When the laughter died down, Rey leaned in and lowered her head as she spoke directly to Maz conspiratorially.

 

“Maz,” Rey asked quietly, “what do you think of Ben?”

 

“What do you care what an old woman thinks of your young man, Rey?” she countered, never one to stand on ceremony or mince words. “If you like him, that’s enough, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes, of course, sure. Thanks Maz, I appreciate it but,” Rey continued, “what do you… _think_ of him. As in, what do you make of how he looks?”

 

“How he looks?” Maz asked in confirmation. “Well, I’d say he looks far too young for me, if you must know, and what a pity!” she said, cracking a loud laugh into the air again, met with more chuckles from across the table.

 

“I…” Rey smiled and shook her head, unsure how to ask this question better. “I mean, do you…do you think he’s very good looking? Do you think he’s as handsome as I think he is?”

 

“Dear one,” Maz said, her tone softened and maternal at once, “I think he’s a fine man to have claimed the affection of a wonderful girl like you. And if _you_ like him, then _I_ like him.”

 

Rey smiled, unsure how this testimony worked into her assessment of Ben and her confusion and yet, thankful to have such amazing friends and co-workers at this point in such a previously lonely life.

 

“If it were me, I honestly don’t think I’d mind his scar, either, to tell you the truth,” Maz added, standing and pushing her chair under the table. “Great, big alpha like that. I can see what you must see in him, my dear, and that’s all that matters. Well, I’d better go and sweep up the branches on the back porch. So much debris everywhere, I need to take these old bones of mine out there and help clean up,” she said, opening the back door and disappearing through it, leaving her words to shake like pebbles in a tin can inside Rey’s thoughts.

 

Silence reigned in the kitchen, distant clatters of tools and vehicles, voices and teamwork filtering into the kitchen like the hot September breeze and Rey studied her coffee mug in her hands.

 

_What scar?!_

Why couldn’t she see it?

What was wrong with her?

 

“What’s on your mind, my friend?” Chirrut asked gently, his face a placid well of availability as he faced the wall before him, his indifferent, sightless eyes turned away from Rey even as his attention focused solely on her.

 

“Chirrut, I think maybe there’s something wrong with me,” Rey said, unsure where to begin. “Or maybe something wrong with Ben. I don’t know. I can’t figure it out exactly and the more I think about it the less I understand.”

 

“I’m listening,” he said patiently, BB purring as she turned through his ankles, her tabby face blissful in her ministrations against his legs.

 

“I am in love with Ben,” she announced to him, happy to get it off her chest, freed and breathing more easily at once.

 

“Well, that’s not a problem, is it?” Chirrut asked with a smile.

 

“No,” Rey said, “I mean, I think Ben is the most beautiful and magnetic and mesmerizing man I’ve ever met. I’m totally swept away by him, Chirrut, he’s everything I could have ever hoped I would find,” she went on. “But, something is wrong and I…I can’t put my finger on it.”

 

“What’s that, my friend? Tell me, what could be the problem when love like this enters your life?” he pursued kindly.

 

“There is a scar,” she revealed quietly. “He has a scar that by all accounts is so significant everyone he meets immediately recognizes it. It’s noticeable, Chirrut, and not in a small way, in a profoundly glaring way, from the top of his face to his neck and over his shoulder, so much that everyone is at risk of being intimidated by it.”

 

“You’re not the type of woman to let that affect you, Rey, you said so yourself by saying he’s so handsome,” Chirrut said. “So what’s the problem?”

 

“I can’t _see_ it, Chirrut,” she finally proclaimed. “I can’t see it _at all!_ I cannot see any imperfection in him. Whatever others see as a scar, as a flaw, I literally _cannot_ find it, no matter how hard I look. I am unable to see what everyone else immediately sees as a major defect in him. To me, he is perfect. It is wild, Chirrut,” she said, “isn’t it? It’s wild and crazy and surely I am losing my mind, right? Is that what this is? That’s why I can’t see what everyone else sees? That’s why I see him so differently?”

 

Chirrut smiled as he pursed his lips together and closed his eyes, BB jumping into his lap for a pat while she purred contentedly and Rey held her breath expectantly for his response.

 

“And why should you see him as everyone else does, hmm?” he asked. “If you are the omega he has mated and he is the alpha you have chosen, why would you ever think you’d see him as everyone else does, my dear, and vice versa?”

 

Rey studied his hands as he pet BB on his lap, methodical and deliberate, his words sinking in like honey in tea, dissolving into the warm pool of her heart, so ready to be sweetened with the message she realized she had most wanted to hear delivered.

 

“The way you see Ben will always be different than anyone else may,” he told her, “and that is exactly as it should be. The way _you_ see him isn’t any less real than how anyone else sees him. In fact, it may be the most real of all.”

 

Rey’s eyes filled with tears as she reached to hug her friend, planting a kiss on his cheeks as he laughed softly, patting her hand where it lay on the table.

 

“Thank you,” she whispered, drying her eyes as Amilyn opened the back door and walked through, pulling off gardening gloves as she wiped the sweat from her brow with a dirt-streaked forearm.

 

“Oh, my!” Amilyn exclaimed. “Already so hot out there!”

 

Rey moved to pour her a glass of sweet tea freshly mixed by Maz that day and waited for her to down the whole tumblerful before depositing it into the sink and beginning to wash all the dishes held there.

 

“So, do I want to know how many rooms you two christened?” Amilyn whispered beside Rey, hip-checking her as Rey looked out the window and bit her bottom lip guiltily, busying her hands to wash the items below them.

 

Amilyn just giggled as Rey blushed and peeked at her from under embarrassed lashes and Amilyn laughed again.

 

“Oh, it’s alright, I get it,” she said comfortingly, moving to look out at the goings-on outside the kitchen window above the sink, Ben and Poe helping one another carry heavy slabs of solid wood across the backyard to the curb, muscles straining as they strode together with the massive boards. “I have my own alpha, Rey, _trust_ me. I get it,” she said.

 

Rey grinned at Amilyn and finished the dishes, moving to pour a tray-full of glasses filled with iced tea before carrying them outside to Ben and Poe and Maz as Amilyn held the door open for her full hands, Chirrut following with BB close behind.

 

The sun blazed down as Poe and Maz moved towards the table gratefully, scooping up the cold beverages readily and Rey walked down to the edge of the property where Ben was stacking wood by the curb among downed branches and collected litter.

 

Seeing his face as he turned to her, Rey broke into a jog and a bright smile, her joy too immense for her body to retain it and she jumped into Ben’s arms as he caught her, his lips finding hers immediately as she settled into his hands beneath her, seated against him happily, enraptured and wanted and safe.

 

“You know,” Rey said, kissing her man’s face, his cheeks, his chin, his nose, his lips, “check-out is at 4. On the dot.”

 

“Oh yeah?” he asked, kissing her back while he walked them over to the table with iced teas, the sun shining on them brightly as he carried Rey in his arms.

 

“Yeah, and I am responsible for stripping the beds,” she said teasingly. “Better come upstairs and mess them up with me again while you can.”

 

Ben grinned at her and she leaned to kiss his mouth again, full of love for him.

 

“Fine with me,” he said with a dirty smirk, still walking towards the party of people on the lawn. “We’ll go get in your bed.”

 

*********

 

The sun streamed into Rey’s third floor bedroom at Hawthorne House, unused the last few days although still housing her suitcase with emergency essentials stashed there as the hurricane approached menacingly.

 

The bedclothes were tightly tucked into the bed’s tall framework, pillows fluffed and unbothered, curtains pulled back and pinned neatly beside the window casing looking out over the street below.

 

Rey heard Ben lock the door as she kissed him soundly, still carried in his arms, having spent all three flights of stairs thinking how truly astounding his strength was, how incredibly sexy his physique was, how completely in love with him she was as he held her in his arms, not even struggling as he climbed.

 

Three flights of stairs and _she_ was the one breathless from kissing such a man.

 

Bright light floated around them, the smallest particles caught dancing in the beams of sun piercing the room through with laser beam shafts of light, every inch of the bedroom fully exposed, illuminated in a way Rey had been deprived of in the last days of stormy, treacherous weather, the brilliance clarifying everything around her, including Ben, who held her in the middle of the room, kissing her hungrily as he allowed her feet to slowly sink to the wooden floor.

 

“Ben,” she whispered as he untucked her shirt from her waist, “look at me. Please. Alpha, look at your omega.”

 

Ben stopped his hands and pulled back to search her eyes inquiringly, his kiss-swollen lips stilling as she looked into his eyes and smiled kindly to alleviate any worry she was causing him.

 

“What is it, sweet girl?” he asked, “Tell me,” he instructed, watching her face as she combed his skin with her eyes, pulling his shirt from over his head, running her fingers from his forehead, down his cheeks, across his throat, his collarbones, his chest, his shoulders, inspecting him with her gaze and her hands, one last time - one final surveying - before confirming for herself, here in board daylight Chirrut’s words to her affirmed what she was living.

 

“Is it,” he began with a swallow, vulnerability driving him to furrow his brow, “too much? Too grotesque for you? Now that you see me, am I too broken for you?”

 

Rey smiled and placed a palm over his heart, her other hand coming up to thread into the hair at his nape firmly, twisting her fingers into his hair firmly.

 

“All I see is you,” she said, “the man I love. The man I choose. All I see is love.”

 

He brought the back of his hand up to her cheek, caressing her skin as he kissed her tenderly, leaning his forehead to hers, their eyes sliding closed.

 

“So beautiful,” she whispered, “so beautiful to me.”

 

Ben sank to his knees and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding his head to her middle while she stroked his hair, her alpha on his knees at her feet, her fingers caressing the thick, wavy locks of his hair and his face so near her wet cunt, her body calling with its scent for the completer of her need, her man, her alpha to tend her once more.

 

He unbuttoned her shorts, pulling her pants and soaked panties to her feet without standing, and licked into her dripping core with lust, moaning at the flavor he inspired to run down her thighs, her head tilted to the sky as she closed her eyes again, her breath hitching at the pleasure of his tongue licking into her.

 

“I am drunk on you,” he murmured, blowing on her wet pussy, his thumbs exposing her pink center, soaked and aching for him, “I will never get enough of this cunt, so ripe and tight. I’m going to lick your hole till I make you come so hard you scream my name and then I’m going to fuck my cum in you, pretty omega. I’m going to show you what you do to me,” he said, leaning in to take a lick and looking up at her, “stand still and spread your thighs for your alpha, sweet girl. I’m on my knees for your wet cunt.”

 

 _“Alpha, please, please,”_ she gasped, his mouth sending her spiraling as her legs threaten to give way, her clit pulsing with his sucking and rubbing, her pussy clenching around his tongue fucking her, his fingers gripping her ass, her breasts, running over every inch, claiming her as he skimmed her skin wherever he pleased, Rey’s thighs trembling as she felt her knees nearly give out, her climax leaving her a panting mess in his mouth and hands, sinking to her knees as she kissed her wetness from his mouth, sucking his tongue into her as she pulled her shirt off and lay on the floor beneath him.

 

“Come in me, alpha,” she murmured as he growled and smiled, pumping his cock lazily as he looked down at her, a smug suggestion of a smile playing on his shiny face, manly arrogance beaming like a halo of debauched beauty as he took her in. “Come in me so I can feel you, I need to feel you inside me, please, please, please,” she begged.

 

He entered her with ardor, slowly and purposely, his hands sliding to lace with hers at her sides, her legs wrapped tightly around him as he thrust into her deeply.

 

“I love you, Rey,” he told her, “I’ll never leave you. I’m yours,” he promised with every plunge of his cock, kissing her as she stared up at him with naked love.

 

“I’ll never let you,” she vowed, “I’ll never let you go.”

 

The clear light of day bathed them in radiance as he filled her with each movement of his body into hers, her eyes shining into his, leaning up to kiss his perfect lips, perfect jaw, perfect chest, every part of her expanding to receive all of him, to claim his love, his cock, his heart, his seed.

 

Ben reached for the bed post behind Rey’s head as he pulled himself deeper inside her, the other hand moving to secure her lower back in his palm, holding her steady while he drove into her relentlessly, her name on his lips as he came, his mouth lavishing hers with kisses that flashed light across her mind brighter than the noonday sun streaming into the room around them and they lay on the floor, the midday sunlight flooding their world with purity as they held one another.

 

“Not broken anymore,” Rey said, looking at her beautiful man, brushing the hair off his forehead with a steady hand, her head resting on his bicep, their legs tangled together as his knot filled her, her body rejoicing at the assurance of his presence, the most essential remedy, the most delicious satisfaction, the most perfect reply for her cravings as she looked at him beside her.

 

“Not alone anymore,” he said as he responding in kind, tucking a loose strand behind her ear as he cradled her on the floor, caressing her face with his calloused hand.

 

There was work to be done, as always, Rey knew it, in a house this size with a business to run there was always work to be done and she could be sure two floors below their friends were still laboring, wondering or then again, maybe not, where the two of them had disappeared to.

 

There was debris to clear and beds to strip, dishes to wash and meals to prepare and sitting on the floor of Hawthorne House kitchen there was yet more furniture to be restored, preserved, carefully reconstructed and tended but for now, it could all wait.

 

After all, Rey knew plenty about restoring broken things, and she knew all about waiting.

It was what she did best.

 

It was all that he needed.

 

**********


	8. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the Fluff Queen is satisfied with the immeasurable levels of fluff herein contained. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to the makers of "The Enchanted Cottage" film, circa 1945, the mansion featured in the moodboards of this fic, the Hamilton Turner Inn in Savannah where I have legit stayed IRL, Conrad Aiken, American poet born in Savannah and buried in its' storied Bonaventure Cemetery, Diet Coke and Keurig for giving me caffeine to write this fic in under a week's time, Apple for making Macbook Pros, the makers of the White Noise app I keep pumped in the room where I write to drown out the whiney nonsense provided by my children, and my husband who is very good at sex. 
> 
>  
> 
> moodboard by my sister, the perfectly priceless @rileybabe
> 
> I love you all, you filthy animals. 
> 
> <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for all my darling, faithful readers.  
> You know who you are. 
> 
> I see you, I know you, I appreciate you.  
> This is for you. 
> 
> and for all the other fic writers who inspire me all the live long day. 
> 
> Roll deep, go hard and play it fast and dirty, ladies.  
> "Well-behaved women rarely make history." - Eleanor Roosevelt
> 
> xo  
> Berry

 

 

_“_ _Her voice and the air were sweetly married;_

_Her laughter trembled like music out of the earth;_

_her body was like the cool blue cedars,_

_Fragrant in sunlight._

 

_And he quivered, to think that he was the blade, in sunlight,_

_To flash, and strip these boughs, and spill their fragrance.”_

 

\- Conrad Aiken,  The Charnel Rose: A Symphony 

 

**************

 

Chicago was in the midst of whiteout conditions, lake-effect snow blanketing the western edges of the lake, Lakeshore drive, Miracle Mile and every surface in the metropolitan area in a thick covering of whipped, driven flakes, a foot deep at least in every direction.

 

Ben clicked the television off with a fulfilled grunt and a small smile, never happier to be far from it, here in the heart of the south, curled with his mate on the couch in their home.

 

Rey snoozed beside him, her head on his shoulder, her hand laid protectively on her small belly, her diamond catching in the light of the lamp beside her as her belly rose and fell with her rhythmic breathing and Ben sat mesmerized as it sparkled against her hand, a tangible promise of his vow to her and her acceptance of him.

Her soft snoring having finally convinced him she was truly asleep, he pulled her out from under the knit throw blanket over their laps where they sat cuddled on the couch together in their living room and scooped her up, easily carrying the two people he loved more than anything in the world to his bed.

 

She was so tired, he knew, working hard to complete her Masters before the baby was born in the summer, the first of July, if the predictors were correct but, well after she finished her schooling at least, at any rate. What with her part-time job she refused to surrender at Hawthorne House and school, as well as all the work she had insisted on helping with as Ben moved them together into this house they rented in Savannah, it was no surprise she fell asleep on the couch pulled into a ball beside her fiancé most evenings.

 

The colder air knocked at the door of their little house but, they were tucked in nicely together for months already now, enraptured with one another, with the life growing inside Rey’s womb they created together, with the only world that mattered to them anymore: the one here in this room together.

 

He brushed the hair off her forehead as he gazed at her in the bed, remembering the first time he had stood over her as she lay on a bed, unconscious, flushed, naked, a celestial goddess, a fallen angel, a sleeping fairy, impossibly glowing with life and grace, impossibly out of his reach with no chance to win her, impossibly precious as she lay quietly beneath his hulking, stinking, heaving self, slight and delicate as bone fine china.

 

Now, of course, he knew she was crafted from sturdier stuff that that, forged in the gritty iron of determination and courage, clothed in the exquisite silk of compassionate humanity, he was seeing what threads of maternal, familial love looked like woven throughout the fabric of her being and he fell more in love with her every day.

 

Rey stirred while he stood over her, watching her breathe, her tummy pulling the covers into a small hill over herself, her hands moving subconsciously to cradle the life she carried so effortlessly inside her and Ben felt a swell of proud and protective instinct rise in his chest.

Interesting how he could simultaneously want so much to shelter and defend his mate and their child and also feel driven to fuck his mate senseless so often.

 

Alpha pheromones baffled even an alpha, sometimes.

 

“Come to bed?” Rey murmured, her eyes barely opened, reaching for Ben’s hand as she turned on her side to face him where he stood towering beside her.

 

“Yes, sweet girl,” he leaned to kiss her forehead. “Just going to lock up. Be right back,” he said, smiling as she contentedly burrowed into the duvet with a trusting smile, assured Ben would keep her safe, secure their home, climb into their bed behind her and place his larger hand over hers as he pulled her against his chest in bed.

 

There was nothing he could have possibly done to deserve her, to deserve this, to have won this treasure and be trusted with it for safekeeping but, no work on earth was more important to him, no goal more sought, no chance more appreciated and, as he flipped the final light in their small home off and curved his body around his mate’s in bed in the dark, satisfaction flooding him deeply as she nestled happily into his embrace, the baby he had given to her safe in her body, Ben thought again about snowstorms and hurricanes and he thought what a glory his life had melted mercifully into this pool of joy.

 

************

 

Guests present at Hawthorne House on the actual day of Christmas came to be particularly special to everyone who worked on the grounds.

 

The happy vibe of the festive season condensed on December 25th palpably, boundaries of propriety between staff and visitors normally held taut to ensure good business practice relaxed slightly to allow for shared delights as everyone generously tossed out seasonal greetings as they walked the halls and climbed the stairs, giggling under mistletoe and rejoicing over Maz’s specially baked goods, a fraternity of fellow revelers enjoyed equally that one day of the year.

 

Rey hurried up the sidewalk from her car to the front double doors, past scalloped boughs of fir swags looped across the iron fence surrounding the inn, the heavy, colorful wreaths inviting them inside, and Ben pulled her gently by the hand to steady her as she nearly twisted her ankle in her excited rush.

 

Ben raised his eyebrows as he caught her hand in both of his, still laced with his fingers at her side. “Little excited, are we, sweet girl?” he teased her.

 

“Can’t help it,” Rey said with a defiant smile. “Won’t apologize for it,” she said, reaching to kiss his nose as she climbed the two first step to the landing at the entrance ahead of him, bringing her closer to his height.

 

“So impatient,” Ben crooned as he kissed her, Rey pulling their laced hands behind her to tug him closer. “That’s new,” he said with a small smile.

 

“I have everything I want,” she said, her silly tone fading into sincerity. “I’m so happy, Ben,” she whispered as gravity fell around them as she spoke. “You give me everything.”

 

Rey’s breath caught as Ben pulled her closer and growled against her lips, nibbling her mouth as he kissed her deeply, leaving her breathless in the cold air, her eyes only opening once his were already watching her, a smile crinkling the edges.

 

Ben looked up over her head at the house behind her.

 

“Think my old room’s empty?” he asked suggestively, peering up at the mansion.

 

Rey smiled a naughty smile at him and kissed his jaw.

 

“We will definitely have to go find out,” Rey promised with a playful grin.

 

Behind them the doors opened and Maz appeared, unprepared for the brisk breeze that fluttered by as she did so, the December Georgia air chilling as it collided with the sweetened, spicy scents wafting from inside Hawthorne House where Maz had been baking gingerbread and maple cakes and sausage rolls all day.

 

“Come in here, you two,” Maz chided as Rey turned and laced her fingers with Ben’s as she pulled him up the stairs behind her, stooping low to hug Maz as they crowded into the doorway. “You’ll catch your death out there!”

 

“Get that baby in this house,” Maz said, affectionately patting Rey’s tummy as she pulled her wool coat off and hung it beside the cherry podium near the doors. “Maybe you two want to freeze your hineys off but, your mama and them won’t be too happy if you let anything happy to that grandbaby of hers, Ben Solo,” she said, taking his coat as well, knowing Leia’s stance on the importance of Ben and Rey’s unborn child.

Leia had sat and talked through wedding details with Maz, Rey and Amilyn in detail over Thanksgiving, present long enough at Hawthorne House to have weighed in on every important aspect of the small, intimate, upcoming ceremony to be held on the grounds on Hawthorne House next month, and to convey her excitement in detail over her first grandchild so much, Ben had to leave the room with a stifled eye roll at her effusive language, causing Rey to snicker seeing him as he’d been as a younger man, a teen, a child, a baby himself.

 

It didn’t feel possible to love him more then she did but, somehow things kept crossing her path and enlarging her view and every time it happened she found a new level of adoration for him in her soul, a new appreciation of her man, a fonder love in her heart for her mate.

 

She looked at him now, standing tall and taking a deep breath, Rey knew, to center himself before participating in an evening with their friends, Poe and Amilyn already hosting a small circle of couples who were staying at the inn, Chirrut and Maz chatting as they shared a pot of chai tea, the Christmas tree keeping watch in the corner of the living room where it twinkled in vibrant shades of gold and reds in the green branches, casting a festive glow on the room.

 

Catching her looking up at him, Ben turned and wrapped an arm around Rey, pulling her flush with him as they stood in the foyer, procrastinating as they waited to join the small crowd.

 

“You two okay?” he asked Rey, his familiar inquiry, making Rey smile at his care, his constant interest, his loving stance, always amazed she held such sway over such a beautiful, impressive man, always empowered to be the anchor that held him fast. “Need anything?”

 

“Nope,” Rey smiled at him. “I was just thinking about this podium and the first time I saw you standing here at it,” she said, glancing beside her to the entrance where Rey had seen a pair of pants situated beneath the most commandingly enticing voice she’d ever heard. She shivered slightly as she recalled the deep resonance of his voice, a boomerang of his essence sent to her on the stairs, pulling her helplessly into his orbit, the first thread of their eternal bond shot through the space between them into her heart and sent back to his own.

“What if you’d never come here? I wonder,” she mused. “What if I’d never heard you, never found you. I’d be here helping at this Christmas party tonight, no idea what I was missing out on.”

 

Ben smiled as he took a deep breath and looked around as if with new eyes, gazing at Hawthorne House around them.

 

“I was always coming to find you,” he said. “Every broken piece I ended up with was worth it to get me to you, my pretty omega. I would always have found you because you would always be what I needed.”

 

Rey smiled and pointed up at the mistletoe above them before standing on her toes to kiss her alpha, warmth spreading from her lips clear to her toes as she felt his lips capture hers, and she only pulled away when they heard Poe clap heartily and whoop at them from across the room, throwing her into a gale of laughter.

 

There was nothing better than the evening they spent there as it granted them the gifts of friendship, fellowship, belonging and Rey’s heart squeezed as they sang carols while Amilyn accompanied them on piano, Rey curled into Ben’s lap on the couch, unwilling to act more polite in the relaxation of the fun evening and Ben as anxious as always to find ways to get her into his space.

 

“C’mon, Solo,” Amilyn said, standing from the piano bench and stretching. “Your turn to play for us.”

 

Ben shook his head shyly while Rey stood and tugged his hand gently, imploring him to use the long, beautiful fingers she knew well for another invaluable skill he had and he reluctantly took a seat on the bench as he ran his hands over the keys.

 

“Alright but, I’m no singer,” he argued. “Chirrut,” he said, “come join me.”

 

Poe hopped up and offered an elbow to Chirrut and deposited him onto the bench beside Ben, a smile on his face that stretched rom ear to ear.

 

Poe sat down beside Rey on the love seat she occupied alone with Ben’s absence and he smiled at her as the room filled with strains of a chorus everyone knew by heart, voices celebrating the holiday in unison as Rey looked around the room and took mental images in her heart to freeze this moment forever.

 

“Ya know,” Poe said thoughtfully, watching Ben at the piano beside Chirrut, playing a tune together while Chirrut sang, Ben’s smile wide as he watched Chirrut’s face light with joy, “he’s so different now than when I first met him. Or maybe Ben just makes a rough first impression, I dunno.” He bumped Rey’s shoulder with his own and smirked, teasing her about her alpha.

“You sure are good for each other, princess, I know that much. He’s softened up a bit and he’s been really good to you. And ya know, crazy thing is, I don’t even see his scar anymore.”

 

Rey smiled and bit her bottom lip as Ben broke into a laugh at Chirrut’s antics, his hair falling behind him as he tilted his head back and laughed wholeheartedly, his jovial voice filling the space all around them, bursting the seams of Rey’s heart, giving her butterflies, his eyes meeting hers and sending her a wink from across the room as he shook his head at their friend.

 

She laid her hand on her small belly, the sweet life inside her greatest gift ever, from her man of course, no one but he could give her anything so precious, so permanent as this, and she kept her eyes on her alpha’s as she responded.

 

“Poe,” she said amusedly, “I know exactly what you mean.”

 

***********


End file.
